S Dilip Roy

The light of education hardly ever reached Char Kalikapur, an inaccessible area on the Teesta riverbed. For the children of 400 families of this area, going to school remained a distant dream amid other harsh realities.

Sixty-seven-year-old Idris Ali is a farmer living at a remote char in Rolakata area on the Brahmaputra bed. He has to travel to Jatrapur market of Kurigram Sadar upazila every day because of his work and to buy essentials for his family.

"It is not just a book fair; it is a gathering of the people of this region."

Barma told The Daily Star that he is a folk music artist listed by Bangladesh Radio and Bangladesh Television. He has sung more than a thousand Bhawaiya songs on radio and television.

Farmers in the greater Rangpur region are so far pleased with their mustard yields amid the ongoing harvesting period while prices for the major oilseed are higher compared to what they were last season.

Char Bhagabatipur is a remote shoal village along the Brahmaputra river basin area under Jatrapur union in Kurigram Sadar upazila where nearly 500 families reside. 

MV Ganga Vilas, the world's longest river cruise, which started its journey from India, will arrive at Chilmari port on February 15, said Mahbubur Rahman, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority chief pilotat Chilmari port.

Abdul Momin, a resident of Rajarhat union in Kurigram, has succeeded in applying biofloc technology to raise native breeds of fish in his very own backyard.

It has been two decades since the longevity of Teesta Railway Bridge in Lalmonirhat’s Sadar upazila expired. But till this day, hundreds of people cross the bridge daily, risking their lives.

About 10,000 farmers across five districts, namely Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Nilphamari and Rangpur, are benefitting from the production, use and sale of vermicompost, which is a natural fertiliser produced by decomposing organic material using earthworms.

On the bank of the Brahmaputra, 60-year-old Sekendar Ali had sown seeds of hope for his family, with just his own hands and a spade. But little did he know, the tides of the river had a different fate in store for him.

Once upon a time, flowers were cultivated in acres and acres of fields in a Lalmonirhat village, so much so that the place was named Fulgachh, which literally means a flower tree.

It has been 12 years since Felani, a Bangladeshi teenager, was shot dead by a member of India’s Border Security Force and left hanging from the barbed fence of the border along Kurigram, but her family is still waiting for justice.

Ekramul Haque, a farmer of Lalmonirhat sadar upazila, had leased four acres of land in Harati union back in 2018 to try his hand at growing oranges.

Jatiya Party’s Mostafizar Rahman Mostafa was reelected  Rangpur mayor while the ruling Awami League candidate, in the fourth position, managed to bag only 8 percent of the vote in the city corporation polls yesterday.

Both the ruling Awami League and opposition Jatiya Party said they would win the Rangpur City Corporation election today.

Ghoshal Sarobar, a pond on the premises of the 400-year-old  Tushbhander Zamindar Bari in Lalmonirhat’s Kaliganj upazila, was leased to a local resident for fish farming. He has, however, constructed over a hundred shops illegally by filling the pond’s bank with earth.

While date molasses is being sold at Tk 160 per kilogramme (kg) in local markets, the same product made by seasonal producers is going for up to Tk 200 per kg from the factory floor, according to traders.

Teachers and officials engaged in temple-based pre-primary education programmes in Lalmonirhat are in trouble as they are not getting salaries for 18 months.

When almost all the 26 small rivers in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram have already been dried up, the two major rivers--Teesta and Dharla -- have turned into narrow channels due to lack of water flow from the upstream, creating hindrance to the livelihood of thousands of people living in different shoal areas of the two districts.