The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to take a comprehensive and integrated plan to remove water logging in different parts of the country including the cities of Dhaka and Chittagong.
He also directed them, at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting at his office, to recover, from the grabbers, the canals in the two cities, keep them clean round the year, construct walk ways on both the banks of the canals and keep them free from grabbing.

Economists on Tuesday criticised the World Trade Organisation for what they said were its destructive policies towards the poor nations for the interest of the developed economies.

The caretaker government yesterday asked for urgently undertaking the long-neglected Eastern Bypass-cum-Flood Control Embankment construction project to protect the eastern part of the city from floods.

A high-level inter-ministerial meeting, presided over by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, gave the directive as the government considered a package programme for solving waterlogging problem and ensuring civic amenities.

The time is appropriate for the CTG, NGOs, local communities and non-profit organisations in Bangladesh to collaborate more effectively and start working together towards a "cleaner Dhaka city," or to at least protect wetlands in Dhaka from the pressure of development to ensure desirable biodiversity. This writer was quite alarmed during a recent phone conversation with a relative, who was visiting Boston. It was alarming because my relative said that there were hardly any wetlands in Bangladesh that may be considered active.

Experts, academics and development activists have called upon the government to revise its climate change strategy, which will be presented at the UK-Bangladesh conference on climate change, after consulting experts and stakeholders.
The strategy is not comprehensive and lacks a long-term vision, they pointed out at a two-day seminar in Dhaka on

The time is appropriate for the government NGOs, and local communities and non-profit to collaborate more effectively and start working together towards a cleaner Dhaka, and to protect wetlands in and around Dhaka from the pressure of development to ensure biodiversity. This writer was quite alarmed during a recent phone conversation with a relative, who was visiting Boston. It was alarming because my relative told me that there were hardly any wetlands in Bangladesh that may be considered active.

The Dhaka City Corporation will receive around 100 CNG-run environmentally-friendly garbage trucks and 25 compactors, used in waste reduction, from the Japan government within a couple of months, corporation officials said.
A Japanese team is now working in Bangladesh for this purpose and a memorandum of understanding, to this effect, is likely to be signed between the External Relations Division and the Japan government on August 22, said a top DCC engineer.

Land developers are filling low-lying lands around Dhaka city for the construction of buildings without applying earthquake resisting measures, speakers at a seminar said yesterday.

The developers are also not following the National Building Code while filling the low-lying lands, they added.

"We need to update the National Building Code, which should feature the latest developments in earthquake-resistant design," Communication Adviser Maj Gen (retd) Ghulam Quader said as the chief guest.

A three-day SAARC conference on climate change was held in Dhaka from 1 to 3 July, where the ministers and experts of South Asian countries resonated the judicious demands of developing nations to adapt vis-a-vis the impacts of the climate change. In the context of global warming, faster sea level rise, frequent devastating cyclones, floods and droughts, the SAARC countries have designed an action plan to combat the environmental challenges.

Speakers at a discussion in Dhaka yesterday demanded land reform and formation of farmers' cooperative to ensure food sovereignty.

"We need an agricultural system that is supportive of feeding all the countrymen. We have problems in the system of food production. But the main problem remains in the distribution system as it fails to distribute the produced food equally among all,' said Serajul Islam Choudhury, professor emirates of the University of Dhaka.

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