Sushanta Ghosh

The long awaited Payra bridge, which will facilitate road transport between a seaport and popular tourist destinations nearby, is finally nearing completion a good five years after its original due date.

Hilsa has become pricier since export of the national fish to India commenced last week.

The local administration and the ruling Awami League men in Barishal appear to be at loggerheads following the violence in front of Barishal Sadar UNO’s office which left around 50 people injured on Wednesday night.

‘This is one of the bullets that came out of my body,” Lalit Das offered the rusty object for this correspondent to inspect. “I was hit with 11 bullets -- six on my left leg, two on the right, two on the right arm, while my abdomen took the other.”

Four killings in 10 days -- first two on April 11 and then again on April 20.

The Barishal District Coronavirus Prevention Committee and Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) authorities have called upon Barishal citizens to volunteer at SBMCH to help with the hospital’s Covid-19 efforts.

Taslima Begum was waiting in queue for an oxygen cylinder at Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital’s (SBMCH) Covid-19 unit from 9am to 12pm on Monday. After struggling for three hours, she was finally able to get a cylinder.

Guava farmer Sunil Halder had travelled to Bhimruli village, a famous floating guava wholesale market in Barishal’s Jhalakathi Sadar upazila, to sell about 74 kilogrammes (kgs) of the fruit last Friday.

Several hundreds of people are allegedly rushing to construct concrete structures at a village in Barishal where the government plans to acquire land for a recreational park.

As the Covid-19 situation worsens in Barishal city, its residents as well as those from neighbouring districts are facing an acute crisis of ICUs, Covid beds, and oxygen cylinders.

Many fishers in Barishal are netting hilsa despite the ongoing ban on sea-fishing. They are catching the fish, particularly during the night to hide from the drives by authorities concerned.

Tried as an adult when she was just a fifth-grade student, Piara Akhter spent the last 24 years of her life in jail for a murder she says she did not commit.

Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital, the only large medical facility in Barishal division, is in derelict condition as the number of patients continue to swell amid rising Covid-19 infections.

There’s a group of artisans in Barishal who have been making their living weaving Shital Pati -- mats made out of cane -- for hundreds of years. In fact, there are entire villages, like Helencha village in Bakerganj upazila, where several dozens of households are devoted to the craft.

Field-level election officials have expressed fear of chaos at the upcoming Union Parishad and Pourasabha elections, stemming from confrontational local politics and factional feuds.

Robots have been seen assisting medical staff at Covid-19 hospitals across the world but it has never been seen here.

Business leaders and trade bodies in Barishal have urged the government to ensure adequate support for them in the upcoming national budget such that they can survive the Covid-19 fallouts.

The Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) of Barishal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH) is not in operational condition. Its only angiogram machine is not working, and all its air conditioners are out of order, which means the unit is barely functioning.

Two men were killed and at least 10 more injured in a clash between two groups of the ruling Awami League in Barishal’s Mehendiganj upazila.

Like other parts of the country, shops in the Khulna and Barishal divisions have become inundated with customers ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, the biggest religious festival in Bangladesh.