S Dilip Roy

As many as 36 men and women, working as voluntary staff at Lalmonirhat Sadar Hospital for years, are passing days amid hardship as the authorities are yet to put them on the regular payroll.

It has been more than two weeks when they came to Bangladesh’s Burimari land port in Patgram with their trucks carrying jute seeds imported from India. But 61 drivers of the vehicles from that country are still stranded there.

A local Awami League (AL) leader is building illegal structures, filling up about 20 decimals of land of a government canal at Kartimari Haat, a village market in Jadur Char union under Kurigram’s Roumari upazila.

The stone-crushing workers in Patgram upazila are left to suffer as most are too poor to afford treatment for an irreversible lung disease silicosis which is their occupational hazard.

Suklal Roy, 37, is known as Dotara Pagol in his village, where the residents are in awe of his skills with the instrument. The artiste lives in the village Kalisthan of Kamlabari union, at Aditmari upazila in Lalmonirhat.

Hundreds of fishermen in Kurigram and Lalmonirhat are going through hard times as fish stocks in the Brahmaputra and Teesta rivers have drastically decreased over the years.

Mizanur Rahman, a youth living on a char on Brahmaputra River in Kurigram, is visually challenged since birth, but that did not prevent him from earning a living.

Paschim Barua village used to be pervaded by some typical social ills -- superstition, child marriage, and child labour. A remote village of 20,000 people in Kulaghat union of Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila, it has now been transformed by education.

The coronavirus epidemic in China has adversely impacted the scrap plastic industry in Lalmonirhat, a northern border district of Bangladesh, as local merchants now find it difficult to offload their stocks.

In Lalmonirhat’s Kaliganj upazila, Abdur Rashid, a farmer, felt the need to do something for the children with special needs, who are often neglected by society.

People generally go to libraries seeking information and knowledge, and sometimes for leisure. But what if you could catch up on reading while waiting for a haircut?

Each farmer, whose name was drawn in lottery, will get a chance to sell one tonne of paddy to the government at Tk 26 per kg rate. But it has been alleged that the growers cannot sell their paddy without paying bribes to warehouse officers and labourers.

Atul Chandra Roy of Durakuti village in Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila has earned the reputation of an ‘ideal vegetable farmer’ in the area, thanks to his use of organic method for cultiavtion.

The use of herbal medicines is providing comfort and relief to the people of Goral, a remote village in Lalmonirhat, and other adjacent villages, thanks to the passion of a schoolteacher for herbalism and his commitment to treat people for free.

The carpeting of newly renovated five-kilometre Mohiskhocha-Burirhat road in Lalmonirhat’s Aditmari upazila is getting damaged as the work under Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) was done allegedly without doing sufficient strengthening work.

Rice growers in Lalmonirhat are feeling distressed after paddy prices in Aditmari, one of five upazilas in the district, fell below their average cost of production in a span of only two weeks.

A physically challenged youth in the remote Haziganj Bhatitari village of Aditmari upazila in Lalmonirhat is using music to inspire children in his village.

Two years back, the people of Sindurna Char, a remote locality in Teesta river basin area of Lalmonirhat’s Hatibandha upazila were hardly aware of modern healthcare including institutional delivery.

Sheikh Hasina Teesta Bridge in Lalmonirhat’s Kaliganj upazila has remained off limits to public transport and heavy vehicles like buses and trucks since its construction over a year ago, much to the dissatisfaction of the locals.

Boro seedbeds in many areas of Lalmonirhat district are turning yellowish under the impact of the ongoing cold wave and dense fog.