Water

Dhaka, Aug 18 (UNB) -The Department of Environment (DoE) here on Sunday ordered the closure of Asian Paper Mills for polluting the Halda River, the country’s largest fish spawning ground. DoE director (Chattogram) Azadur Rahman Mollick said a team from the divisional office of the department visited the mill on August 14 and issued the order to shut it saying ... Read More »

Sudhirendar Sharma The Ganga’s sacredness doesn’t guarantee its purity, as devotees draw a distinction between material cleanliness and ritual purity. Paradox! Exploiting the very source of life for economic and political gains has reduced our individual and collective relationship with water. With the intrinsic value of water being ignored in its sheer assessment as a resource worthy of appropriation, an ... Read More »

7 common rivers’ water-sharing issues discussed Dhaka, Aug 8 – Bangladesh and India on Thursday agreed to conduct a joint study on Ganges Barrage project and formed a technical committee to finalise the terms of reference (ToR) and constitute a larger panel to do the study to assess its impact on the environment and livelihood. Read More »

Mymensingh, July 29 – Drinking water will be provided to the garment industry by 2030 as well as all people of the country. The Deputy Minister of Water Resources Ministry AKM Enamul Haque Shamim said this at a workshop titled ‘Gender Discrimination, Water and Empowerment among Textile Industry Employees of the country’ organized at Professor Muzaffar Ahmed Auditorium of Dhaka ... Read More »

Sudhirendar Sharma It seems a back-of-envelope estimation that a good samaritan has tossed up on social media to shock us out of slumber. Unbelievable though it may read, Ludhiana city dwellers have been credited for wasting some 15 million litres of water daily; Amritsar and Bhatinda account for 2.5 million litres; and Patiala some 2 million litres. It may seem ... Read More »

Chittagong, July 17 –The Department of Environment on Wednesday suspended the production of Picking power plant in Hathazari Upazila and fined it Tk 20 lakh (Taka 2mn) on the charge of polluting Halda river by dumping wastes. The Halda is the last remaining natural carp spawning ground in Bangladesh. Read More »

Dhaka, July 12 – The flood situation in the eastern, southern and northern regions of Bangladesh worsened yesterday as major rivers there were flowing above the danger-levels.The Teesta River was flowing 25 cm above the danger level at Dalia point in Nilphamari district at the Northern part of the country around 9 am on Friday, flooding the char and low-lying ... Read More »

Keraniganj, July 12 (UNB)- It is not about a single tube- well that would go out of order and could be fixed soon. Imagine a village dependent on groundwater, where one day residents wake up to find not 1, 10, or 20 but rather 2,000 tube-wells together have been rendered useless to the task of lifting water. The situation can ... Read More »

Cox’s Bazar, July 10 – Police recovered bodies of six people from Sughanda point of Cox’s Bazar sea beach in the district town on early Wednesday. The identities of the deceased could not be known yet. Khairuzzaman, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Sadar Model Police Station, said being informed by local people a team of police recovered four bodies from the beach ... Read More »

Dhaka, July 1 (UNB) – The High Court has observed that Bangladesh’s existence depends on the protection of rivers. “The country will survive, beloved Bangladesh will survive if the rivers are protected,” it said. The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice M Ashraful Kamal came up with the observations in the full verdict declaring the Turag River ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 27 – Underneath the salty waters of the North Atlantic ocean, geologists have discovered a giant aquifer of freshwater, hidden from view just off the US coast, reports Science Alert. While the vast size of this massive cache is surprising, it’s not entirely unexpected. Signals of the water first showed up in the 1970s, but until now, nobody ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 19 – The High Court Division of the Supreme Court on Wednesday wanted to know the steps taken to implement its 2015 directives for stopping cultivation of fishes in Dhaka, Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) lagoon in Dhaka’s Kadamtoli, as its water and fishes are poisonous and harmful. The apex court directed the authorities concerned to submit ... Read More »

by Sahana Ghosh on 17 June 2019 • Territoriality through traditional self-governance played a key role in successful and sustained anti-dam protests by two indigenous communities in Lachen and Lachung in the eastern Himalayas. • While many anti-dam protests have not been successful in northeast India, they worked in Sikkim’s Lachen and Lachung because of the deployment of notions of ... Read More »

Port Hadlock, Jun 16 (AP/UNB)— At least one Washington state waterfront landowner has said yes to a request to allow dead gray whales to decompose on their property. So many gray whale carcasses have washed up this year that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries says it has run out of places to take them. In response, the agency ... Read More »

Zarzis, Tunisia, June 16 – The Tunisian trawler radioed infor help as it passed the migrant boat in distress out at sea. But with thepacked craft still adrift two days later, captain Chamseddine Bourassine tookdirect action. Fishermen from the North African country are spending more and more timepulling in stranded migrants after a sharp decline in humanitarian andEuropean naval patrols ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 15 – Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has asked his new Indian counterpart S Jaishankar to expedite initiatives to resolve the Teesta issue and sought active supports over the Rohingya crisis in their maiden talks in Tajikistan, a foreign office statement said here today. “He (Momen) drew the Indian counterpart’s attention towards the pending much expected Teesta ... Read More »

Chattogram, Jun 14 (UNB) – The vessel movement at the outer anchorage of the Chittagong port resumed on Friday noon after three hours of suspension following a head-on collision between two vessels at the estuary of the Bay of Bengal and the Karnafuli River in the morning. The accident occurred around 8:45 am on Friday although no causality was reported. ... Read More »

Washington, June 11 (AP/UNB) — The world’s oceans will likely lose about one-sixth of their fish and other marine life by the end of the century if climate change continues on its current path, a new study says. Every degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that the world’s oceans warm, the total mass of sea animals is projected to drop by ... Read More »

Dhaka, June 9 (UNB) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Sunday said Bangladesh will not have to seek water from others if water could be reserved properly. “Bangladesh is delta [country]. All rivers originated from the Himalayas flow through Bangladesh. If we take steps to preserve water, we won’t have to seek water from others.” Sheikh Hasina said this ... Read More »

Brahmanbaria, June 8 (UNB)- The literary sketch of Titas River in Adwaita Mallabarman’s ‘Titas Ekti Nadir Naam’ or ‘a river called Titas’ – later made into a film of the same name by Ritwik Ghatak – has undergone a sea-change in reality over the years and turned into a narrow canal due to navigability crisis and ongoing illegal grabbing. Whoever ... Read More »

• Malva Baskovich • Berenice Flores Arias Uijtewaal WSS Facilities & Menstrual Hygiene Management in Rural Schools of Latin America How memorable is your “first-period story”? Were you at school? Did you dare to tell a friend or teacher? Did you have a proper functioning bathroom to run to, with a door you could close? And for the male readers: ... Read More »

By Claudia Sadoff Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 31 2019 (IPS) – Global biodiversity loss has reached critical levels. One million species of plants and animals are now estimated to be at risk of extinction. The window for action is closing, and the world needs to urgently take note. Countries would do well to consider this: our ability to preserve species ... Read More »

New Delhi, May 31 (UNB)— The people of Bangladesh have been waiting for years to see the Teesta River water sharing issue settled, President Abdul Hamid told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday. “I believe an agreement will be signed soon, which will fulfill India’s commitment in this regard,” President Hamid said. A deal on sharing the water of ... Read More »

Dhaka, May 28 (UNB) – Antibiotics exceeded ‘safe’ levels by the “greatest degree” in Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan and Nigerian rivers, while a site in Austria was ranked the highest of the European sites monitored, says a new global study. Metronidazole has also exceeded safe levels by the biggest margin, with concentrations at one site in Bangladesh 300 times greater ... Read More »

China has begun sharing hydrological data with India on the Bramhaputra river for this year’s monsoon season, a senior Indian water resources ministry official said May 20. It is also expected to start sharing data on the Sutlej river from June 1, the start of monsoon season, an official said. China provides data from three hydrological stations Nugesha, Yangcun and ... Read More »

May 26, 2019 SANDRP Book Review: “Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River” by Sudipta Sen. Penguin Viking. 2019. PP 445 + (xvi) “Panditaraja Jagannath, Mughal court poet extraordinaire, a scholar of Linguistics, poetics, and philosophy, hounded by the Brahmin orthodoxy led by Hara Dikshita for marrying a Muslim woman, sought refuge on the steps of Banaras by the side ... Read More »

Chittagong, May 26 –Fishermen collected around 8,000 kg eggs from the Halda River, the only natural fish spawning waterbody in South Asia, on Saturday night. Mother fishes of different species released eggs in the Halda River. Fishermen initiated netting eggs from Friday dawn. The authorities concerned said that egg collection may exceed previous records this year as they have taken ... Read More »

Naogaon, May 26 – The phrase ‘drought-prone region’ to describe a cluster of districts in Bangladesh’s north sounds almost benign, and hardly captures the perpetual hardships of people engaged in a daily battle for water, the other name of life. The paucity of water also makes it extremely difficult for farming or any form of agriculture to thrive in the ... Read More »

Netrokona, May 23 (UNB) – The government has taken a plan to dredge some 10,000 kilometres of waterways to strengthen the country’s water transport system, said State Minister for Shipping Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury on Thursday. “Water transport system is a cost-effective, comfortable and environment-friendly means of communication. But, we’re gradually losing the traditional waterways due to navigability problem,” he said. ... Read More »

Kushtia, May 23 (UNB) – The local administration has identified at least 3,000 encroachers who have illegally occupied the banks of rivers and canals in the district, obstructing their  water flow. These encroachers have built houses, shops and markets on the rivers and canals. Now, the authorities concerned are trying to free the banks in six upazilas of the district. ... Read More »