To keep kids engaged during the coronavirus pandemic, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched an online book reading challenge for school children. Over 3000 children from across Bangladesh participated in this initiative through quizzes.

To ensure that farmers get fair prices for their products and consumers get quality products through fair deals amid the pandemic, paikarisale.com (http://www. paikarisale.com/), a sustainable, social welfare e-commerce platform, was launched recently.

Charity Right is an international social welfare organisation based in the United Kingdom. They are working closely with the UN and WHO to eradicate hunger and poverty worldwide. They are a prestigious member of the UNGC from Bangladesh, whose work is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. The organisation operates their programmes in six different countries, including Greece, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Indonesia.

Mahhfuz Rahmaan’s book Gooltoo was one of the most popular books for children at the Ekushey Boi Mela 2020. Written and illustrated by the writer, the colourful book is a collection of seventeen short rhymes. Mahhfuz, who is currently working as a journalist with Prothom Alo, received the Panjeree Chhotakaku Shishu Sahittyo Puroshkar, recently.

I was adopted on October 19, 1996.

After all, what's Eid without the fight for salami?

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the youth-led organisation, MASTUL Foundation, took an initiative to support middle-class families who feel embarrassed to ask for financial help.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, All For One Foundation distributed food among 4,000 lower-middle income families in different parts of Dhaka, and 21 other districts of the country, recently.

TransEnd is a social welfare organisation that empowers the transgender community through education, training, employment and entrepreneurship. Founded by Lamea Tanjin Tanha in 2019, the organisation primarily arranges social awareness campaigns and programmes, educating people on the gender spectrum.

Interactive Cares is a youth-based organisation founded as a cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) based platform. Their initiatives cater to the youth of the nation, contributing in e-learning, telemedicine, mental and physical health and legal services via real-time communication. The users can directly have voice and video calls, chats with the authorised industry experts, with automated prescription and virtual whiteboard facilities. The website allows its registered users to avail resources such as books, solutions, notes and creative illustrations among other things for free. "E-learning and telemedicine are few of the crucial demands during this pandemic. Interactive Cares will soon launch user-based cloud and artificial intelligence services in the USA. In the upcoming months, we will try to upgrade the services nationwide in full swing,” said Rare Al Samir, CEO.

It’d been so long since I last walked in this city.

BOU promises to deliver world-class quality education to its students while making sure that they do not have to step outside the safety of their own humble abodes.

Youth Op for 11/5/20

BRAC University Mongol Tori, a next-generation Mars rover, has ranked 3rd in University Rover Challenge (URC). The rover, which tends to walk alongside human explorers on the red planet someday, has the ability to retrieve objects, complete autonomous traversal missions, collect visual data, perform planetary analysis, detect the presence of life by conducting biosignature tests and help astronauts with equipment servicing.

To raise awareness on coronavirus, Lal Sabuj Society (LSS) has initiated multiple campaigns and projects all around the country.

To address the necessity and accessibility of verified information on COVID-19, four friends living in four different parts of Dhaka developed and launched ‘Corona in Bangladesh’, an online platform featuring a compilation of local and international from reliable resources, on March 21. Assembling updates through news reports and articles from World Health Organisation (WHO), Worldometer, Johns Hopkins University, IEDCR, and other such dependable news sources, this platform aims at raising awareness and reducing panic in Coronavirus pandemic.

On the occasion of Kobiguru Rabindranath Tagore’s 159th birth anniversary, let us take a look at some of his short stories, translated to English, that you can enjoy, as you self-isolate at this time.

Man beneath the mountains

Ever since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, horrifying news has become an overwhelming yet regular part of our lives.

Ma comes home with a tiny little piece of haluwa wrapped in taut plastic—the kind you get at hospitals. She holds it up in the air, her fingers a jeweller’s vice, and says, “See the haluwa?”