Porimol Palma

Nutrition is the foundation of human health, education and economic development, and yet it gets poor attention pulling back nations

The ever-growing Rohingya influx is a crisis not only for Bangladesh but also for the region as well as the entire world, UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh Robert D Watkins has said.

The efforts for Rohingya repatriation and creating secure conditions in Rakhine without engaging the United Nations would prove

The international communality's solidarity must match Bangladesh's efforts in dealing with the Rohingya refugee crisis, says the chief of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

On Friday noon, Asia Begum stood under the scorching sun, waiting by the roadside at Kutupalong for relief. She looked pale and tired. Her seven month old son, Yasin, tightly clung on to her arm.

Tasmin has lost everything, literally, when the Myanmar army burned down her house in Andaung village in Maundaw. But that is past and she has no time for that now. Her current concern is her eight-month-old son, Firozmin, who has been suffering from dysentery, fever and cough.

Amid a shortage of resources, the authorities are struggling to provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other basic needs to the huge number of Rohingyas streaming into Bangladesh from Myanmar every day.

While growing up in Myanmar's Rakhine, Noor Sabah, now 70, was constantly reminded the country didn't own her. Her movement was restricted and her access to education, health and other basic services was limited. People of her community also had to pay extra tax for getting married and building homes. Braving all these odds, they lived there for generations.

Noor Ankis looks pale, tired and terrified. The seven-month pregnant woman walked through jungles and hills for ten days and nights before reaching Ukhia's Bagguna, where a camp is being set up by the new arrivals from Myanmar. “I walked some distance, stopped to rest a little and began walking again. One child was in my arms and my father carried the other,” said Noor, 25.

Bangladesh faces an uphill challenge of providing shelter to tens of thousands of Rohingyas fleeing persecution in Myanmar's Rakhine State.

Shafiqa Begum was among the crowd chasing a minivan distributing food packets among starving Rohingyas near Tyingkhali Rohingya camp. Holding her eight-day-old daughter tightly to her chest, she tried her best to push through the thick throng. But before she could go near it, the van started to move back as it ran out of food.

The word "excruciating" can hardly describe the pain Simeen Hossain has been in since she lost her son in the Gulshan cafe attack.

The capital has a very high presence of Aedes mosquitoes that transmit viral diseases like dengue and chikungunya, posing a serious health threat.

Thousands of people living on the slopes of hills in Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracts and Cox's Bazar are exposed to landslides in the rainy season due to cutting of hills and unauthorised use of public land.

Lingering diplomatic stand-off between Qatar and several Gulf countries would have an adverse impact on Bangladesh's labour market

The new farm technologies, introduced during the Green Revolution in the 60's, contributed a lot to boost production and feed the rising population in the country.

The proposed health budget is an increase, from the preceding one and in terms of its percentage in the total budget, but the plans

The premature death of a Dhaka University student at a private hospital, the subsequent vandalism there and Bangladesh Medical Association's decision to abstain from work for a day have left the nation shocked.

In a gap of three months, the capital is witnessing a second outbreak of mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, raising a new public

The food -- however nutritious or favourite -- can turn bland without salt, at least in this part of the world where taste matters more than anything else when it comes to dining.