12 acres of Meghna leased out illegally
10 December 2019
The district administration in Munshiganj violated law by leasing out a 12-acre foreshore and floodplains of the Meghna in Char Betagi, said National River Conservation Commission Chairman Muzibur Rahman Howlader.
10 December 2019
Fresh onslaught on Meghna
7 December 2019
A river under onslaught. An open defiance of a High Court order. And inept river custodians.
7 December 2019
Curious foreign trip
29 November 2019
A team of soon-to-retire engineers and an administration official are leaving for the US and the UK on a two-week trip ostensibly to learn about digging canals, protecting river banks, restoring embankments, and dredging rivers, which they had been doing for over three decades.
29 November 2019
IF RIVERS DIE, SO WILL WE
8 November 2019
What was once considered encroachment has become outright murder. But the seriousness of the crime has done little to deter a carnival of corruption plaguing river management.
8 November 2019
2009 HC Verdict: What the court directed and what’s been done
8 November 2019
The apex court in 2009 directed the government to demarcate the original territory of the four Dhaka rivers -- Buriganga, Turag, Balu Shitalakhya -- restore those rivers to their original state and protect them against grabbing and from pollution.
8 November 2019
Building Rules / 95pc structures in Rajuk area non-compliant
4 October 2019
Over 95 percent of the structures under Rajuk’s jurisdiction were built without building approval, according to survey findings for the ongoing revision of the capital city’s Detailed Area Plan (DAP).
4 October 2019
National Building Code: Disregarded all along
1 October 2019
Despite tragic loss of lives and properties in repeated building disasters, the country’s national building code has been lying largely unimplemented for 26 years, getting obsolete in the absence of an enforcement authority, said leading professionals.
1 October 2019
WORLD RIVERS DAY TODAY / Authorities’ inaction put rivers in peril
21 September 2019
The deplorable conditions of the rivers around Dhaka city and elsewhere in the country due to encroachment and pollution are the result of inaction of the river custodians and their complicity with the grabbers for decades, National River Conservation Commission Chairman Muzibur Rahman Howlader has said.
21 September 2019
Metro rail system to ease Dhaka's traffic gridlock
With the physical progress of the country's maiden 20km metro rail service already visible across the capital city, implementation of four more proposed metro lines is simultaneously going ahead as a measure for partially relieving the capital city of its perennial traffic congestion.
14 November 2018
Unfounded lists spark concern, confusion
Two unsubstantiated lists of tribal refugees and internally-displaced persons have not only caused public outrage in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), but also an apprehension about security threat among the security forces.
6 November 2018
A three-month wait that didn't end in three decades
Nasima Begum's three-month wait for returning to her homestead did not end in three decades leaving her with an abject life at a temporary cluster housing that best resembles a refugee camp.
26 October 2018
When teachers are grabbers!
A local teachers' association is building a multi-storey shopping centre on a Debottor (endowed) property of a century-old Hindu temple in Modhupur defying a court order.
15 September 2018
Airport-Gazipur BRT Line: Cost doubles, 20pc progress in 6 years
It's another classic case of delay in project implementation and a whopping rise in the project cost in the process.
The project for an extended 20.5km rapid bus service for mass transport between Gazipur and Shahjalal International Airport was taken up in 2012.
25 August 2018
3 govt bodies issue desist notices
Three government authorities have asked the managing director of a private business conglomerate Unique Group to halt earth-filling of fertile agricultural lands in the name of a private Sonargaon Economic Zone on the river Meghna in Sonargaon Upazila.
20 August 2018
BRT route may now be halved
The rapid bus service, much touted as a way to ease the capital's chronic traffic congestion, may be implemented only in part, and that too not before 2024, as arbitrarily built flyovers block its proposed route, said officials and transport experts.
12 August 2018
Dhaka Elevated Expressway: Construction picks up the pace
Finally, after over seven years of toiling exercise of preparatory work, construction of the much-talked about 47-km Dhaka Elevated Expressway commenced formally on April 1, 2018.
8 August 2018
A lesson not learnt
Dhaka would not be deluged in 2018. This was the promise the local government minister made last year. But his words did not translate into action.
18 May 2018
Tailback for Feni Overpass: Lack of traffic management plan caused it
The massive tailback due to the construction of Fatehpur rail overpass on Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Feni over the past week was expected, said a leading traffic system expert. He noted that the work lacked a traffic management plan.
15 May 2018
Sonargaon Economic Zone: Injunction there, so is violation
The woes of 12,000 villagers on the Meghna in Sonargaon are not likely to lessen despite the highest court's ban against damaging their ancestral agricultural land.
28 February 2018
Inaction kills Dumni canal
Years of public outcries, pledges of administration and the High Court's order had failed to save the natural canal Dumni Khal in the capital's outskirts.
25 February 2018
Elevated Expressway: 7pc progress in 7 years
The government in the last seven years has failed to issue the work order for the 47km Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DEE) even though its construction has been inaugurated twice.
21 February 2018
Of a strange eviction
The Victory Day morning of last year started like any other for the 85-year-old widow of a former Ispahani company director. She woke up, did her usual chores and had breakfast.
20 January 2018
A canal on deathbed
The natural Dumni canal that nourished local agriculture and ecology for decades on the city's eastern outskirts is now being filled up to make way for real estate development.
23 December 2017
Good initiative, messy management
Residents of some parts of Gulshan, Banani and Baridhara in the capital have to bear the misery of dug-up trenches and muddy roads for another half a year thanks to an ongoing road and footpath improvement work.
16 December 2017
Plastic bins, this time
No one knows when the trashcans on the pavement in front of the Navy headquarters in the capital were stolen, leaving just the metal frames where the bins used to hang.
11 December 2017
Streets Under Flyovers: Occupied by parking, shops
Illegal and haphazard parking and other unauthorised occupation under almost all the flyovers in the capital are depriving people of the benefit of the elevated structures, said transport experts.
26 November 2017
Sewage taints rivers, canals
In the absence of modern treatment facilities, a cringe-worthy 80 percent of the capital's sewage goes directly into rivers and water bodies.
9 November 2017
Decentralise power
Calbayog -- a city in Samar province of the Philippines -- was recognised as the country's cleanest and second most peaceful city. The man behind this achievement was Mel Senen Sarmiento, the city's mayor from 2001 till 2010.
3 November 2017