Unheard Voices

A regular reader has informed us about this initiative. Use your multidisciplinary knowledge set to propose a practicable way to preserve the delta we call home (and go in the prize to win €10,000).

A combination of ideas from different disciplines could contribute to a sustainable development of the Deltas of the world. These could cover (combinations of) areas such as Water, Nature, Mobility, Agriculture, Energy, Health, Housing and/or Recreation.

We are in particular seeking creative, innovative and multi-disciplinary solutions. But solutions should also have a scientific base and be realistic (let’s face it… we will probably not all move to Mars in the coming decades).

The DeltaCompetition calls upon (bachelors, masters en PhD) students from all over the world and from all relevant disciplines to prepare – together or individually - a paper and submit this to our internationally acclaimed Jury.

The Jury will award two prices: €10,000 for the best paper submitted by a group of students; and €5,000 for the best individual paper.

View the endangered deltas of the world in the Google Earth tour “Endangered Deltas”. For that, you need Google Earth installed on your computer. Scroll down in the menu ‘places’, click on ‘endangered deltas’ and press the ’start’ button.

Details: http://deltacompetition.ddg42.tamtam.nl/en-us/Pages/Home.aspx

I still remember my late Mama’s voice in a phone conversation in the late nineties when he told me that now we will just have to say Bismillah and drink the water here. He was referring to the higher than acceptable arsenic concentration in the drinking water from groundwater sources in Bangladesh that was discovered earlier and widely “acknowledged” around that time. Groundwater contamination by arsenic at such high quantity is not just happening in Bangladesh, it is also happening in India, China and in other parts of the world. In fact, worldwide 140 million people, especially in the developing countries, are at risk of arsenic poisoning through drinking water.

So far, we have been hearing mostly about the risks of water with high concentration of arsenic on people and what may be causing it and how many lives maybe at stake. The burning question of how we divert this inevitable calamity went unanswered for too long. The government and international organizations kept pondering upon the question giving no priority and significance to the issue. Even the organizations that initially funded the tubewell project to tap into the groundwater for drinking, where the root of the problem goes back to, failed to recognize and work towards diverting the catastrophe until many years later.

Do a chemistry professor named Abul Hassam, an expatriate Bangladeshi, finally have the answer that will provide a simple yet affordable way to avert what he calls the arsenic poisoning of drinking water “one of the worst natural disaster on earth”? Will Abul Hassam, named this year “Heroes of the Environment” by Time, with his solution save millions of lives of his fellow Bangladeshis as well as millions more elsewhere in the world? Read more about it in Time magazine.

Bangladesh is now in the middle of an overwhelming natural disaster. At least 60 people (Much higher unofficially) has lost their lives and 6 million people have no food or shelter. Flood has devastated a big chunk of Bangladesh. Business, education, healthcare and normal life have been shattered in 1/4th of Bangladesh. Agriculture live stock loss is projected to reach billions of taka. People, women-children, old-youth are desperately looking for a dry land to rest or cook. The children are hungry. There is no food to eat, not place to rest, no transportation to move.

Finally after two weeks our CA visits a camp in Kurigram after landing in a ‘built for him’ heliport. And while the law advisor asks people to pray to God for reprieve and our generals compete with each other for a photo-op, a thousand hired workers hurriedly launch a crore taka budget demolition fiesta.

Yes, the fiesta to demolish Rangs Bhavan.

As Rangs Bhavan disappears rapidly, questions and concerns remain.
(more…)

In Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s literature, you would not be able to finish a full sentence without getting the description of dozen of different flora, starting from the century old shade trees to the little grass flower. Bibhutibhushan was the master in bringing up the real nature of Bengal in his letarature. As clearly depicted by Bibhutibhushan, an exceedingly lively nature and rich biodiversity made the landscape of Bangladesh.

 Several years ago, I had an opportunity to travel to the Chimbuk hill at BandarBan hilly district. While I expected a visual commentary of Bibhutibhushan, I was shocked and saddened to see an indiscriminate massacre of nature. The arakan mountain range that runs parallal to the coast line through Chittagong or the more intimidating landscape of the hill tract districts used to be home of dense lush green rain forest and was inhabited by an amazing range of creatures. Wild elephants used to roam along the foot of the hills in dense jungle, they also used to have leopards, porcupines, gibons, orang otangs, deers, bears, pythons, Nil Guy etc. Now-a-days, this dense green rainforest has turned into governments fruit gardens.

For many decades, there have been government programs of planting fruit trees along all the rainforests and to accomodate more fruit trees there have been more felling of trees that were meant to be there naturally.

Tagore wrote, “Oi Maloti lota dole, pial o toru ro kole”. As both  Maloti lota and pial toru are not lucrative, they have to give way for genetically modified new species of rapid growing trees or amra/peara gardens.

(more…)

Suddenly the water turns black and all the dead fishes, alligators and sharks start floating at the rivers adjacent to the Bay of Bengal in the Sundarbans (The last remaining unadulterated forest in Bangladesh). A commercial liner is reported to be in trouble nearby. Blogger AsifY posts a blog on this issue. Not a single reader takes part in the discussion, while hundreds of comments flood the posts on politics, the leaders and their sons. And nobody in Dhaka chattering class makes a single sound about it.

All the sewer wastes of 7 million Dhakaites are collected, processed in 16 large lagoons near Dhaka. Many years ago, some evil traders start raising fish in those sewer collecting depots. These fish are sold in Dhaka markets for years. Government decides to stop it. They poison the fishes and try to collect the dead fishes for burning. Suddenly thousands of local people storm the area, battle with the police, loot the fishes, and run back with the poisoned dead fishes grown in sewer lagoon.

Probably the cry of hunger was a little too intense.

While all these happen, the beastly cry at Dhaka zoo gets louder for a couple of days. As a result of some government bureaucratic entanglement, administrative inefficiency and extreme indifference to the core duty of the job, the animals of Dhaka zoo starve for 3 days. Apparently the budget to buy meat etc for the animal needed some signature at the secretariat. The agriculture advisor, upon hearing the story from media men, call in the zoo officials, some emergency fund is managed and several cows are collected from nearby Savar Dairy farm to feed the zoo animals. These animals would have fed themselves if they were allowed to live in their natural habitat. Now as their natural habitat has been destroyed and they are held captive, it is the responsibility of the captors to feed these animals.

And all these happen when this glowing Dhaka breaks into the list of top ten countries in high tech mobile phone sells.

Shadakalo and 3rd World View are reporting on what could possibly be an oil spill near the Sundarbans.

Prothom Alo has been reporting that the waters near the Sundarbans have changed colour and that sharks and crocodiles are flaoting on the rivers. Today, Reuters carries this story about an Iranian vessel that has been in trouble en route from Chittagong to Kolkata. More details can be found on the blogs linked above.

All this has gone mostly under the media’s radar. Anyone has any more information or any contacts in the area?

জুন ১৩ ও জুন ১৪, ২০০৭ তারিখে প্রথম আলোর প্রথম পাতায় এসেছে আবাসন শিল্পের কর্ণধারদের নিয়ে প্রতিবেদন। রিয়েল এস্টেট ও গৃহায়ন শিল্পপতিদের সংগঠন রিহ্যাব অর্থ উপদেষ্টা মির্জা আজিজ এর কাছে অনুরোধ নিয়ে গিয়েছিলেন সাম্প্রতিক বাজেটে ঘোষিত একটি রদ করা রীতি আরো এক বছরের জন্যে চালু রাখতে। রীতিটি হচ্ছে, নির্দিষ্ট হারে কর দিলে জমি বা বাড়ি ক্রয়ে ব্যয়িত টাকার উৎস সম্পর্কে কিছু জানতে চাওয়া হয় না। সোজা কথায়, কালো টাকার মালিকদের নিশ্চন্ত মনে আরো এক বছর জমিজমা ঘরবাড়ি কেনাকাটা করে টাকার রংটা পাল্টে ফেলার সুযোগ দেয়া হোক। অর্থ উপদেষ্টা সাফ না বলেছেন। রিহ্যাবের কর্তারা আশঙ্কা প্রকাশ করেছেন, তাঁদের শিল্প মারাত্মক ধ্বসের মুখোমুখি হতে পারে। তার পরদিন এসেছে আবাসন শিল্পের মোঘল বসুন্ধরার ব্যবসায়িক অপচর্চা নিয়ে কিছু কথা। বসুন্ধরার কর্ণধার বর্তমানে প্রবাসে আছেন, তাঁর সম্পর্কে রাজনীতির পান্ডাদের উৎকোচ প্রদান থেকে শুরু করে পুত্রের বিরুদ্ধে হত্যার অভিযোগকে ঘুষ দিয়ে ধামাচাপা দেয়ার তথ্য বেরিয়ে এসেছে প্রাক্তন স্বরাষ্ট্র প্রতিমন্ত্রী লুৎফুজ্জামান বাবরের সাম্প্রতিক রিমান্ড জেরায়।

প্রতিবেদন পড়ে যা বোঝা যায় তা হচ্ছে, আবাসন শিল্পের হর্তাকর্তারা অত্যন্ত প্রভাবশালী (হয়তো ঘুষ হিসেবে প্লট/ফ্ল্যাট/বাড়ির আবেদন নগদ টাকার চেয়ে বেশি), এবং তাঁদের শিল্পের স্ফীতি বহুলাংশে কালো টাকার ওপর নির্ভরশীল। এবং টাকার ব্যাপারে বর্ণবাদী না হতে যে আহ্বান তাঁরা জানিয়েছেন, তা সরাসরি দুর্নীতিবাজদের সহায়তা করবে।

প্রাক্তন অর্থমন্ত্রী সাইফুর রহমান কালো টাকা সাদা করার জন্যে সে টাকা গৃহায়নে বিনিয়োগের সুযোগ চালু করেছিলেন। তার আগে টাকার ধোলাই করতে হতো শিল্পকারখানা খুলে (যেখানো মানুষের কর্মসংস্থানের সুযোগ তৈরি হয়)। রাতারাতি ধোপাবাড়ির ঠিকানা বদল হওয়ার কারণে অঢেল কালো টাকার স্রোত ধেয়ে চলে আবাসন শিল্পের দিকে। অর্থনীতির সরল সূত্র অনুযায়ী সীমিত সরবরাহের বিপরীতে বর্ধনশীল চাহিদা অল্প সময়ের মধ্যেই আবাসন শিল্পের পণ্যগুলির মূল্য বাড়িয়ে তোলে দেড় থেকে দুইগুণ।

(more…)

Photo: Moshiur Rahman [ I know this picture hurts. And exactly that is what I want]

All babies look kind of similar when they sleep. If you look at the picture, you will notice that overwhelming all the mud and dirt, a peaceful sleep glows all over the face of the baby. The baby was probably sleeping while the whole family were buried alive during the landslide. Now the baby has slipped into another sleep never to wake up from.

This little child was supposed to live a full life. Very unfortunately the life has been shortened. And it happened all because… because what?

Is it because the bay was born in a poor family? Or because the parents could not afford a crib, let alone brick house in a residential area or an apartment in a bay view high rise?

(more…)

There is a saying in Bangladesh “শিশুরাই জাতির ভব্বিশ্যত”. Save the Children’s annual State of the World’s Mothers for 2007 indicates that impressive progress in cutting down the infant and child mortality rates and placed us well over India and Pakistan among 60 developing nations in this regard. In fact, the percentage drop in the mortality rates is much higher than South Asian average of thirty percent. If things progess at this rate, Bangladesh is sure to have a positive contribution to the Millennium Development Goals that targets to reduce child mortality rate by two thirds by 2015.

(more…)

China Plans to divert Bramhaputra waters

tip and comment from Rezwan Sharif

in short: china is planning to build a dam to divert waters from the Brahmaputra river, which could lead to ecological disaster in Bangladesh: drying up a few rivers, raising silt and salinity levels impacting the sundarbans, and beyond. India is raising a few eyebrows as it will affect them too, but not to the same degree as Bangladesh. ironic, as the farakkha dam is still in operation. ….and my fear is: this is just the beginning of the water wars to come in the near future [in our lifetime, perhaps]!

(more…)

Where prescription by World Bank, ADB, WHO fails, the simple grassroot, local solutions work wonders.

BETGARI, Bangladesh — In the golden haze of dawn, Mohammed Salim Sheikh walked slowly through the paddies, so frail and thin that the lungi wrapped around his waist looked like a clown’s oversize trousers.

Carrying a treatment chart in one hand and a stainless steel water glass in the other, he crossed the threshold of a house. The housewife inside, Zahida Khatun Jharna, rose from her cooking fire, fetched his medication and filled his water glass. Then she ticked off his chart for the day and sent him home.

The routine plays out in countless villages across this country every morning, and it represents a remarkably simple but apparently effective effort to tackle a stubborn and deadly epidemic: tuberculosis, a scourge that kills 1.6 million people worldwide each year.

Full Article

Slideshow

I was a student of Chittagong medical College, when the cyclone of April 29 hit coastal Chittagong. It was drizzles all day, winds were gaining momentum as night fell on Chittagong. When I came out of the library building around 9 PM, the winds were quite strong, campus was deserted, and hospital lobby was empty. I had to stay over in the hospital that night because the road connecting the hospital and the student’s dorm on the other side of the hill was too unsafe for walking in that storm. Falling trees, flying debris were everywhere. As night progressed, storm got fierce and fiercer, as if the immense 6 story quarter mile long building will fall apart. As I took shelter in a bed at the sick student’s ward, it was a scary sleepless night. We, half a dozen stranded souls, kept waiting for the morning only to see utter devastation of the medical college campus. The beautiful hilly tree lined campus was in ruins, 50% of all the large trees were uprooted, and power lines were all over. The hospital, the highest tertiary health care-trauma center for all of southern Bangladesh was totally ineffective as the fallen trees completely blocked all the roads including that to the emergency.

(more…)

An incredible new piece on climate change linking it directly to river erosions in Bangladesh. Drishtipat London is going to work on the issue of climate change this year to raise awareness on west’s responsibility on this and the danger it brings towards the future of Bangladesh. Also another goal is connect people working outside Bangladesh on this issue with the folks in Bangladesh who are working at the grass root level. If you are interested to volunteer to this cause, please write to info AT london DOT drishtipat dot org

The once lush island of Aralia is disappearing under rising waters as flooding becomes more frequent, temperatures increase and disease kills four people a month

It is hard to gauge the exact extent of the local devastation caused by climate change because severe flooding and catastrophic river erosion are part of every day life in rural Bangladesh. But the island of Aralia, in the Haor flood plain of north-east Bangladesh has, in the past 50 years, diminished to a fifth of its size, according to its older residents Ask anyone over 40 about the island of their childhoods and they describe fertile fields, green trees and animals, an island of plenty, where children grew up healthy and went to school. Today, Shamola’s misfortunes are becoming the norm as flooding and river erosion become ever more common. Non-government agencies working with Bangladesh’s poor, as well as scientists throughout the world, are convinced that climate change is to blame for the dramatic increase in this flooding.

With a population of 150 million, Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated country. A series of straddling deltas of some of the world’s biggest rivers, Bangladesh is at risk not only from rising sea levels, but the increased flow of water caused by more rain and glacial melt from the Himalayas. At this rate of flooding and erosion, 20 per cent of Bangladesh could be under water by 2100. All this despite the average Bangladeshi using just one tenth of the carbon emissions of any European, and one 25th of the average citizen of the United States.

(more…)

The chickens in Savar poultry farm that had been initially suspected to be suffering from Ranikhet disease (a local disease for the poultry) had been tested positive for the very deadly Avian Flu. The reason for the alarm is that this particular virus can affect human as well (even though known cases are relatively small) and due to the absence of a vaccine researchers have feared the disease might become pandemic.

From bdnews24.com

Avian influenza has been detected in a poultry farm in Savar, the government said in a statement Thursday. The government rushed a meeting where health adviser ASM Matiur Rahman and livestock adviser CS Karim broke the news that results of laboratory tests showed the deadly virus of H5N1 in chickens in the farm.

Some Facts about Bird Flu:

(more…)

I know this topic is not as sexy a topic as those on Dr Yunus, Sheikh Hasina/Khaleda Zia and their sons or even cricket. But I dare write about it because we can no longer afford to ignore this issue.
********************************************************************

While trying to visit Dhaka’s main water bodies this time, I came up with two interesting findings,

1. A water body, when it goes through a posh area, it is called a lake. The same thing when it enters middle class Dhaka, it renames itself as a Khal or jheel. A Gulshan resident can not tolerate a Begunbari or Meradia resident living beside a lake!!

2. Except the Dhanmondi lake (And part of Gulshan lake) most of the water bodies in Dhaka are either lined by slums (More specifically slum latrines) or small industry waste disposal system and there is no easy access to reach them.

*********************************************************************

As I grew up in north Dhaka (Then north, now probably central), I witnessed years of massive land fills eliminating water bodies, swamps from Dhaka.

Even now, the moment you leave the city limits you see low-lands spread all the way to the horizon. And alarmingly, you will not find a single water body which has not yet been marked for death by imposing signboards of real estate businesses. (Thank you Jugantor owner Mr. Babul).

(more…)