Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan

Abdul Aman, a Rohingya boy of 18, was a student of grade eight in 2017. His dream was to travel abroad for higher education after completing his school.

When Covid patient Rokeya Sultana was fighting for her life in the ICU of a private hospital last week, her son Mamunur Rashid was found frantically talking over the phone with someone trying to convince that person to buy a piece of land from him.

From the drawing board to the approval stamp, it’s been a long exhilarating process for OxyJet. But it isn’t over yet.

Abdus Salam, a long-time resident of Mridha Bari area, said the stench from Matuail landfill nearby has become unbearable in the last five to six years.

Wednesday was a nightmare for Shipra Baidya and her family.

The government is going to give Tk 13,500 and career counselling to 200,000 migrant workers who returned home amid the pandemic.

Around 34,000 temporary and substitute workers of state-run jute mills shut down in July last year have been living a miserable life as they are yet to get their dues.

To live off the streets of Dhaka is not merely living in hunger, it also comes with an immense lack of security. For the “tokai” -- a child waste picker -- living in the capital, hunger and malnutrition is almost the least of their concern, with much bigger dangers lurking around all the time.

Md Rasel, a 27-year-old peddler, regularly visits hospitals and diagnostic centres in Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area to collect recyclable medical wastes.

At around 9 AM, two massive excavators were moving wastes from a waste dumping platform at Matuail Sanitary Landfill. Deafening noise from the engines and their gigantic moving arms equipped with teethed steel bucket could not make any impression on 10-year-olds Shabuj and Shajib.

Desperate and discomposed, they would arrive at the doors of private hospitals to get treatment for Covid-19.

More than 32,000 substitute and temporary workers of the state-run jute mills, which were closed on July 1 last year for modernisation, are leading miserable lives as they have not received their dues yet.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in the readymade garment sector have been laid off since last year, despite factory owners receiving a Tk 8,000 crore stimulus packagefrom the government to pay their salaries during the pandemic.

The health services division utilised only 21 percent of their allocations from the Annual Development Programme in the last nine months, said a report of the implementation, monitoring and evaluation division of the planning ministry.

“Please help me to find Actemra 400mg injection (Tocilizumab) for my Covid patient mother. She is currently in ICU. Please help…” read a recent appeal by Sazzad Hossain on a public Facebook group.

Sanzid Hasan was five when his parents, impoverished residents of Mohammadpur’s Geneva Camp area, discovered that he could not communicate as easily as other children.

Zaheda was rushed to a private clinic in Chandpur district’s Shahrasti upazila on May 24 last year.

The government has decided to lease out all 25 state-run jute mills to the private sector despite initial plans of reopening them either through joint venture, public-private partnership, or a government-to-government (G2G) agreement.

When the Indian subcontinent was pushed into violent communal turmoil and was being partitioned as its consequence, one person firmly stood out as the guardian of secularism, unity and peace. He was Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

How many people with disabilities are there in Bangladesh?