Ahmed Humayun Kabir Topu

Lychee growers in Pabna are all smiles as the fruit is fetching a good market price across the country after a shaky harvest.

When the government is planning to store sufficient food grains for ensuring support in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rice procurement drive in Pabna faces a hurdle due to alleged irregularities by a section of officials and ‘low prices’ offered to millers and farmers.

As the Covid-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc across the world, it has also induced countless rare incidents. Whilst the virus is trying to defeat humanity, people are fighting against it -- setting examples of solidarity. The volunteers of Quantum Foundation in Pabna have set such an example.

The Jamuna has been swelling rapidly over the last one week and has drowned low-laying areas in Sirajganj, threatening flash floods in the district.

Bodies of five more people who drowned in a boat accident in the Jamuna on Tuesday were recovered yesterday, taking the death toll to 10.

The district agriculture extension office in Pabna says 22 to 25 percent of litchis -- worth around Tk 154 crore -- had been damaged by the strong winds whipped up by cyclone Amphan.

This will be the first Eid for Arafat Haque, a lecturer of Demra University College, when he will not be able to buy anything new for his seven-year-old boy.

A building of the historic Rabindra Kacharibari, from where Rabindranath Tagore supervised his family estate in Sirajganj’s Sahzadpur upazila, lies in an awfully dilapidated condition, giving a striking contrast to the well maintained and decorated mansion of the great literary genius on the same premises.

The fallout from Covid-19 has muffled the sound of looms and the buzz of the clothing markets this year during the peak business season for apparels, Eid-ul-Fitr.

There has been a stunning slump in demand for meat and eggs since coronavirus arrived on these shores. And the dizzying speed at which the lethal pathogen went about upending life in the country prompted many farms, slapped by unprecedented losses, to cut back on production by more than half.

Visitors of Pakshey railway office in Pabna’s Ishwardi upazila are often surprised to see the awful condition of five graves of Liberation War martyrs near the Pakshey divisional railway office, often try to read the nearly deleted plaques.

The 89th birth anniversary of legendary film actress Suchitra Sen passed in silence yesterday as there is strict restriction on public gatherings to check the spread of global pandemic Covid-19.

A large number of dairy farmers in Pabna and Sirajganj are facing a tough time as big milk factories have drastically cut collection of the item from the famous milk producing zone during the ongoing general holidays and countrywide shutdown-like situation aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus.

Over the past few years, Md Khasru Miah, a truck driver of the Baba Solaiman transport agency in Ishwardi, typically made at least five trips per month to deliver materials used for manufacturing export-oriented products in Ishwardi export processing zone.

As the nation observes the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the people of Pabna feel nostalgic because of his association with Nagarbari ferry terminal and ‘Mujib Bandh’, a flood control embankment along Padma and Jamuna rivers.

A three-day festival, marking the 39th National Assembly for Rabindra Sangeet, concluded in Sirajganj recently, with discussions, cultural programmes and a rally. Jatiya Rabindra Sangeet Shammilon Parishad (JRSSP) organised the event at the Sirajganj Government College.

In 1948, when Dhirendranath Dutta’s proposal to recognise Bangla as one of the state languages of the then Pakistan was rejected in the parliament, protest raged like fire all over the erstwhile East Pakistan.

Illegal sand lifting from the major rivers in the district, especially the Padma and the Jamuna, has continued for years, although the district administration officially stopped leasing the sand fields in 2010 following an injunction by the curt.

A marketplace established in Pabna’s Satbaria Bazar to promote rural women entrepreneurs is about to be closed allegedly for lack of fund and patronisation.

The Women’s Corner at Satbaria Bazar in Pabna’s Sujanagar upazila, aiming at encouraging rural women traders, is about to be closed amid lack of sufficient backing.