Ramna Park, the green oasis, the lung of the Dhaka city has survived one hundred years amidst the concrete jungle.

Though the park is a source of pleasure to the city dwellers with all its natural assets, no one bothered of celebrating the centenary of the park except for two nature lovers, Professor Dwijen Sharma and environmentalist Mokarram Hossain. They are organising a programme to celebrate the park centenary.

Seven leading lights in the battle against global warming who are also catalysing the transition to a greener and leaner global economy were recently acknowledged as the 2008 Champions of the Earth.

The winners, ranging from His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco and the Prime Minister of New Zealand to a Sudanese climate researcher who has been successfully piloting climate-proofing strategies in some of the most stressed communities on Earth, received their trophies at a gala event in Singapore.

Seasonal summer fruits contaminated with carbide are causing serious health hazards such as stomach pain, acidity, food poisoning, digestive trouble and colon cancer, experts said on Saturday.

"Carbide mix hinders biochemical reaction in fruits and subsequently cause the deadly diseases including cancer," Professor ABM Faruque of the Department of Pharmacy of Dhaka University told BSS on Saturday.

We were standing in Sarova village, not far from Raipur, the capital of mineral-rich Chhattisgarh. All around us we could see some black stuff scattered on the ground. The villagers told us that the sponge iron factory owner was giving this away as a 'gift' and would even transport it to their lands. They refused to say if they were being paid to dump this reject on their land. But they did whisper to me that the land on which we were standing, laden with black reject belonged to the brother of the sarpanch. The sarpanch they said was earlier against the factory's pollution.

The government attaches top most priority to the energy sector and the Energy Ministry has promised an allocation of Taka 45,000 crore from Taka 130,000 crore in the proposed budget of the forthcoming financial year.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, Maj Gen (retd) Mohammad Shubid Ali Bhuiyan told this at a roundtable here on Saturday.

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The Chinese state oil giant that has a grip on Burma's biggest gas field is now venturing into neighboring Bangladesh, a move which may stifle long-running conflict over territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal.

The Government of Bangladesh yesterday signed a credit agreement worth US$ 130 million with the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary arm to help to increase access to electricity through installation of affordable Solar Home Systems in rural areas.

The massive use of pesticides in almost all cereals, vegetables and crop fields has been proved harmful to environment, ecological balance and human health, sources said.

The extensive use of pesticides in almost all cereals, vegetables and crops field has been proved harmful to human health.

Pesticides are used in pumpkin, guava, blackberry, ladies finger, palk, calery, water melon, pulse, brinjal, chilli, bitter gourd, beans, potato, tomato, cauliflower,, cabbage, jackfruits and many other vegetables.

The Ministry of Power and Energy has been mobilising Tk 40,000 crore to generate 5,000MW of electricity to reduce load shedding into a tolerable level within next four and half years during the term of the present government.

The ministry has placed its mega plan of power generation to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office yesterday.

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