Md Foisal Ahmed

MV Dudu Mia-1, a clinker-loaded cargo vessel, sank in the Kirtonkhola river in Barishal on December 14 after a head-on collision with a passenger launch. It has not been salvaged yet.

Remember when loud music blaring from store-side speakers used to be a staple in the city? Almost none does it anymore. One can’t help but miss it, even if it was a great nuisance to the public.

More than four years ago, the government had decided to upgrade the Railway Hospital in Kamalapur, aiming at providing better service for railway staff and expanding its services to general people.

The thought of driving an hour and a half in a city beleaguered by unending traffic congestion to do anything is stress-inducing. Munia and her friends -- all university students -- drove all the way from Mirpur-10 to Dhaka Airport Railway Station just to have some tea.

Just a few years ago, clean public toilets with modern facilities were a pipe dream in Dhaka. The few toilets located across the capital were dingy stalls with no facility to wash hands, let alone special arrangements for women and persons with disability.

From the Sultanate period, Dhaka witnessed many mosques built on its land, and that tradition was continued with utmost conviction -- to make the city full of places to pray -- throughout the Mughal era. They were definitely successful as Dhaka is commonly known as a “city of mosques”.

Frequent movement of unauthorised vessels, hidden islands and narrow channel have made around 50 kilometres of Dhaka-Barishal naval route extremely risky.

Dhaka, like any 400-year-old city would, has gone through a metamorphosis over the course of its illustrious and fascinating history, as have the lives of its inhabitants.

A research team, for the first time in Bangladesh, is studying native snake species aim-ing at mass-scale production of effective antivenom for local patients.

A footpath renovated under the supervision of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), that brought months of suffering to locals, is falling apart within weeks of being completed.

The hospital is seven-storied, well-furnished and is the only government facility in a 10-kilometre radius. It does not have the problem most hospitals do -- space shortage. Yet, it has failed to serve residents of Dhaka in 18 years since inauguration.

The Emirates Friendship Hospital (EFH) a local non-government organisation, with the support of Emirates Airlines Foundation, established the modern floating hospital in 2008 inside a ship. The hospital gives free-of-cost medical support to impoverished people living on chars.

Many auto-rickshaws in Barishal city are using household gas cylinders, exposing passengers to high risk of accidents, according to the Department of Explosives (DoE).

With an app launched by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), one can now find out if a drug is genuine or fake before purchase.

Around 5:00pm, Dr Noor Ahmed Talukder along with others was in the middle of an operation at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.

Tobacco is the single most important risk factor for cancer. Bangladesh is one of the largest tobacco consuming countries in the world; each year tobacco-related diseases kill over 100,000 people in Bangladesh, and among this about 38 percent deaths occur from tobacco related cancer mortality, a recent research has shown.

The Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) has launched six international standard mini-labs in as many districts to enhance its capacity to check sale of fake medicines.

When it comes to breast and cervical cancer detection, a small mobile clinic has been able to make great strides.

Motaleb Hossain turned up at the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH) in the capital in October last year after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.