Pinaki Roy

A little over a week is left before the Eid-ul-Fitr but that can hardly excite the paddy growers in Naogaon as they remain preoccupied with falling prices and debts.

A flurry of activity yesterday afternoon set the Local Supply Depot at Mohonpur apart from other depots in Rajshahi. While farmers were found reluctant to take paddy to most depots, some half a dozen labourers were seen at the Mohonpur depot, unloading sacks of paddy from a truck.

The number of Bengal tigers in the Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans has increased slightly, according to a latest tiger census.

A big portion of the wild elephant population in southern Cox’s Bazar is at risk of being wiped out, experts say. The mammals are confined to small patches of hilly forests in Inani-Shilkhali area as Rohingya settlements have taken over their migration corridors that lead to parts of Bandarban and Myanmar.

Exhausted and terrified, Saifur Rahman, employee of Amraa network office on the 17th floor of the 22-storey Faruk Rupayan Tower in the capital's Kamal Ataturk Avenue, sat on the pavement near the building.

Archaeologists have found crop seeds as old as 2,500 years in Bogura's Mahasthangarh.

The government has approved multiple power projects near hilsa sanctuaries in Patuakhali coastal area, posing a threat to the breeding and nurturing of the national fish.

“I am requesting all leaders and activists of the BNP and its front organisations and alliance partners not to stay at home or go to work. Also, don't sit at any tea stall or any crowded place near the streets and campaign after evening until further instruction.”

Stepping into Chuadanga on Sunday afternoon, the first thing that stood out was the absence of “sheaf of paddy”, the electoral symbol of the BNP.

Some locals now keep boats, not cars, in their garages. Before going out to work, people here always check the tide schedules. During the high tide, businesses come to a grinding halt while students attend classes sitting on high benches as the ground floors of schools go under knee-deep water.

For Bangladeshis, there is nothing to fear about Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC), Indian Minister of State for External Affairs General Vijay Kumar Singh (Rtd) said yesterday.

The graphs look chilling. A red line sharply shooting north, crossing a purple, a yellow, a blue and a green. “That's what dengue looks like this year,” said Dr Ayesha Akhter, in-charge of disease control room at the directorate of health, pointing to the red line representing the number of patients this year.

This Padma is not the river they know. At Naria of Shariatpur, 20km from the Padma Bridge construction site, it has changed abruptly for sure. Once relatively calm and quiet in the area, it turned into an all-devouring river in just a few years.

Dr Mong Sano Marma initiated the genome sequencing and proposed it to Prof Haseena Khan, who led the research. Mong also convinced his neighbour in the US, Dr Peter Ianakiev, who facilitated the genome sequencing at his research organisation for free.

Raphael Nkhoma is a farmer in Malawai, an African country that depends heavily on agriculture.

In 2002, Bangladesh became the first country in the world to ban thinner plastic bags. The unprecedented step generated a lot of positive buzz.

The dolphin census going on in the Sundarbans area is indicating that the number of the mammals in the mangrove forest rivers is

Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine State are still crossing into Bangladesh though the two countries are expected to start the repatriation of the Rohingyas, who have already taken shelter here, in weeks.

The 450 Hindus who would be taken back by Myanmar in the first batch on January 22 know little about their repatriation, and officials concerned here are also in the dark.

After the Buriganga, the tannery industry is now polluting the Dhaleshwari river, as the central effluent treatment plant (CETP) for treating liquid waste and hazardous chemicals is yet to be fully operational.