Ahmed Humayun Kabir Topu

Nurunnahar Begum of Boktarpur village in Pabna’s Ishwardi upazila left home for love in 1994, to marry Md Rabiul Islam of the same locality. Rabiul didn’t have any source of income at that time, so her family didn’t approve of the wedding.

Vegetable cultivation is gaining popularity in Pabna as growing profits have spurred local farmers to expand their activities over the past few years, according to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in the district.

In March 2021, Water Development Board started dredging  5.67 kilometres of Ichhamati river to increase its navigability, under a project worth Tk 5.46 crore. Besides, it simultaneously kicked off an eviction drive, under a Tk 2.69-project, to free the riverbank.

Farmers in Pabna, the biggest onion producing region in Bangladesh, have started harvesting a quick growing variety of the bulb called Kondo, but are being left disappointed by the poor prices currently on offer in local markets.

Operations at the Baghabari river port in Shahzadpur upazila of Sirajganj, one of the most important river ports in Bangladesh for ensuring a supply of fertiliser and fuel to 16 northern districts, has been limping on due to a massive navigability crisis.

A three-member probe committee of Bangladesh Samabaya Bank Limited has found allegations of bank loan default against over thirty farmers in Pabna to be true.

It was a conscious decision for Dr Mohammad Fazle Rabbee, to return to his motherland from the UK where he had gone for higher studies.

Taravanu Begum, a middle-aged woman in Paikartoli village in Sirajganj’s Kazipur upazila, lost her homestead to river erosion and was compelled to take shelter at the flood protection embankment area a few years ago.

Several farmers, accused of defaulting on loans in Pabna, have said they became victims of fraudulent activities when they took the loans from Bangladesh Samabaya Bank.

Due to absence of government-designated dumping stations, tonnes of household, industrial and medical wastes are being dumped under the open sky on a daily basis in Pabna town, posing a serious threat to public health.

Starting off in 1962, the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation’s (BSCIC) industrial estate in Pabna had initially drawn small investors, taking shape as one of the district’s biggest food processing hubs. 

Family members of at least two of the 12 farmers, who were arrested Friday on loan default charges in Pabna, claimed they had repaid the money on time.

Agriculture is a key sector of Bangladesh’s economy but most people never dream of becoming a farmer as even those with the slightest education hope to make a living through other professions of more repute.

An abandoned one-storey building of the health department on Abdul Hamid road in Pabna was mostly used to keep dead bodies. But it all changed in 1984 when a few youths came together and turned the ghostly establishment into a facility to treat diabetes patients.

The Benarasi Palli in Pabna’s Ishwardi upazila has remained inactive since its establishment in 2004 due to a serious lack of initiative among the authorities and weavers involved.

Six loss-making sugar mills owned by the state were shuttered in 2020 so that they may undergo modernisation and eventually become commercially viable once again.

The second and final reactor of the Rooppur power plant will be installed today -- marking the most important development in the construction of the country’s first nuclear power-source.

Many fishers in Sujanagar upazila of Pabna are netting hilsa in the Padma river despite the ongoing 22-day ban, enforced from October 7.

Amirul Islam of Burampur village in Lokhmikunda union under Ishwardi upazila could not continue his academic career beyond the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) level due to his father’s death in 1990.

Pabna Mental Hospital, once considered the most reliable mental-health facility in the country, has seen its service crumble in recent decades.