This daily reported yesterday that many of the villages of Rangamati and Khagrachhari districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts are facing an acute crisis of water as most of the springs and streams in these villages are running dry. The situation is so bad that even after digging up to 150 feet, no groundwater could be found in some of the springs.

Come the major festival times come the increased activity of the fake currency gangs. Taking a stock of the incidents of busting of currency gangs would reveal this dangerous phenomenon. And this has again been confirmed by the seizure of fake currency-making materials by the Rapid Action Battalion on April 24.

Five years after Rana Plaza collapse, the deadliest garment factory accident in history that took over a thousand lives, the collective efforts of the Bangladesh government, entrepreneurs, apparel retailers and brands, workers' rights groups, NGOs and inspection bodies such as the Accord and Alliance, have led to considerable progress in fire, electrical and structural safety in Bangladesh's garment factories. But more needs to be done.

Not very often are we accustomed to seeing a news item as inspiring as the one about a school for children with special needs in Jessore published by this newspaper on April 24. A bunch of wilful and dedicated people of the district's Abhaynagar Upazila built the school on their own. The school—a tin-shed building comprising four classrooms—currently caters to as many as 101 students, many of whom discontinued or were rejected from normal schools.

We are surprised that the Santal community of Gabindaganj upazilla (Gaibandha district) who had been cruelly evicted from their own farm land by law enforcers, are still having to bring out a human chain, to demand justice and the return of their land

On Sunday, a few hundred students of Uttara University staged demonstrations demanding punishment of some staff of Turag Paribahan bus service.

On average, 16 people have become victims of enforced disappearance between 2012 and 2017, which amounts to more than one every month. It is regrettable too that in the four or five years that the afflicted families have been making their annual plea to the government through a press conference, to trace the victims out, their number has risen gradually.

A survey by the Passengers' Welfare Association revealed at least 87 percent of buses and minibuses ply recklessly in violation of traffic rules on the roads of Dhaka, creating chaos.

It is alarming news that a syndicate is using a new route to bring yaba pills from Teknaf to Dhaka and has already brought 10 lakh yaba pills through the route in the last month alone.

We are appalled to learn that Dhaka University authorities handed three students of Sufia Kamal Hall over to their guardians in the early hours of April 20.

A new global study on air pollution has placed Bangladesh among three countries experiencing the steepest air pollution levels in the world since 2010. Bangladesh has suffered a steady decrease in air quality over the past years, largely because of dust and industrial pollution resulting from the operation of brick kilns as well as development works, among other sources. Particularly, the capital's air quality is of a questionable standard.

We welcome the recent lift of a six-year-long ban on recruitment of Bangladeshis to the UAE. An MoU between officials of the two countries has sealed the deal which will allow jobseekers to apply for employment in the Emirates. It is especially reassuring that under this MoU workers will get contracts stating job description, salary and other benefits such as food, accommodation and transport. This will hopefully provide better protection to the migrant workers.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's call to the international community to put more pressure on Myanmar to take back Rohingya refugees is very timely, because, it seems, only international pressure can make Myanmar act according to the deal.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader recently said that road management is not responsible for road accidents as a result of vehicles overtaking one another; rather drivers, passengers and transport management are to blame. We would like to point out two things. First, the minister's comments leave out the role of traffic management which is crucial for road safety. And second, road accidents are a result of overall management which includes road, transport and traffic management.

It has come to light that a section of arms dealers are apparently selling legally imported and licensed guns to underworld criminals. According to a report printed in this paper on April 18, some dealers are filing off the serial numbers that each firearm carries before selling them on the black market. Dhaka Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism (CT) unit made the revelations after catching a manager at a legal arms-selling shop red-handed.

The front page report in this newspaper on April 17 depicts the pitiable state of the development works taken up by the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) in 44 wards. It shows exactly how crony capitalism is working to waste public money and increase public sufferings. This grim picture, we are afraid, represents fairly well the state and quality of works in most of the wards under most city corporations.

We are concerned by the way three university students, who are leaders of the recent quota reform movement, were unceremoniously picked up by detectives while they were travelling in a rickshaw and then shoved into a microbus and taken to the office of the Detective Branch (DB), allegedly blindfolded.

We are deeply saddened to hear that Rajib Hossain, the student who lost his arm to a race between two buses in the Karwan Bazar area in the capital, passed away in the early hours of Tuesday at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was on life support.

The Sundarbans suffered another disaster on Saturday when a vessel carrying 775 tonnes of coal sank in the Passur River.

Such a blatant hoax does not fool anyone, least of all the people of Bangladesh.