A national network constituted with the participation of media people, persons with HIV positives, and NGO activities after completing the two days long training programme organised on reducing social stigma on HIV and AIDS by Nari Unnayan Shakti supported by SARDM, World Bank at Khulna on Caritas Auditorium on 1-2 November.

The government has reduced the fare of diesel-run inter-district and long-haul vehicles by Tk 0.07 per kilometer following the reduction of diesel oil price by Tk 7.

However, the fares of CNG-driven buses and minibuses plying in Dhaka and Chittagong Metropolitan cities remained unchanged at Tk 1.20 and 1.10 per kilometer respectively, said a PID handout.

Level of sound pollution (also termed as noise pollution) in Dhaka city is now a major concern for the general people because it has already exceeded the tolerance level. Because of the sound pollution millions of people in Bangladesh are exposed to a number of health risks- from deafness to heart attack.

Aman paddy, vegetables, mustard, pulses, chilli on 2,60,330 hectares of lands have been damaged in the devastating cyclone Reshmi in 30 districts in the country, according to sources of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The taskforce on saving the Buriganga river, maintaining its normal flow and navigability submitted its report to the government on Wednesday.

Taskforce Chairman and former chairman of the Privatisation Commission Enam Ahmed Choudhury handed the report to Adviser for Agriculture and Water Resources Dr CS Karim at his secretariat office. Other members of the taskforce were present.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Commission (EC) have signed a MoU to jointly support Bangladesh in its environmental management activities.

In 2007, there were 874 weather-related disasters worldwide, a 13-percent increase over 2006 and the highest number since the systematic recording of natural perils began in 1974. Weather-related disasters around the world have been on the rise for decades (see Figure 1): on average, 300 events were recorded every year in the 1980s, 480 events in the 1990s, and 620 events in the last 10 years.

Drinking water in Bangladesh is often full of salt as rising sea levels force water further inland. Expensive technology offers solutions but who will foot the bill?

Momtaj Begum, holding her baby daughter, is among hundreds of women queuing for a pitcher of drinking water at a desalinisation plant in Tafalbaria, a remote village in the Bagerhat district in south-west Bangladesh.

National Sanitation Month-08 is being celebrated in all the seven upazilas of the district from October 01 with much enthusiasm aimed at achieving 100 percent sanitation target by 2010.

Water experts at an opinion exchange meeting yesterday emphasised the need for involving local people to save the Buriganga river from dying.

Addressing the function, they also demanded protection of the river at its upstream branches from pollution.