Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma If you need to spot a diabetic friend on the sprawling lawns at a marriage reception, all you need to do is to stretch your sight to the section serving ‘desserts’. Ten out of ten chances are…
Category: Green corner
For befitting respects to language martyrs
Amor Ekushey is being observed all over the country on Saturday with due solemnity. People from all walks of life and ages are walking to shaheed minars in barefoot processions and offering fateha to the graves of the Shaheeds of…
Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs
Introduction 1. The Rio+20 outcome document, The future we want, inter alia, set out a mandate to establish an Open Working Group to develop a set of sustainable development goals for consideration and appropriate action by the General Assembly at…
Nagorik Samaj takes non-political face, appeals for dialogue
Nagorik Samaj, a platform of civil society members, yesterday called upon the Awami League and the BNP to stop the violent activities as well as to take immediate step in holding dialogue to overcome the present political deadlock in the…
This Valentine’s Day love the hands that feed you
Danielle Nierenberg This Valentine’s Day, before planning your romantic dinner or buying roses and chocolate, think about how your choices will affect the hands that feed you. According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, the average consumer spends around…
Terrorism: Ultimate weapon of the global elite
Robert J. Burrowes The usual definition of a ‘terrorist’ is simple: a person who uses violence in the pursuit of a political objective. By this definition, the two major categories of terrorist are those political leaders who perpetrate state terror…
Imprisoned democracy threatens Bangladesh with extremism
Mohammad Zainal Abedin, writes from New York Though democracy in 1971 was the immediate spirit and reason of Bangladesh’s liberation war, it is now imprisoned in the country. As soon as Radio Pakistan in its 2-PM news bulletin broadcast on…
Eleven ways to help the next generation of farmers
Danielle Nuremberg It’s time for a revolution in the food system—both young and new farmers need more support to nourish future generations. Farmers, businesses, policymakers, and educators need to promote agriculture as an intellectually stimulating and economically sustainable career, and…
Why do we fear love?
Robert J. Burrowes Why do human beings fear love? That is, why do we fear loving ourselves and others, and why do we fear being fully loved ourselves? If someone does not receive what they need emotionally as a child,…
Save democracy, save Bangladesh
Mohammad Zainal Abedin, writes from NY The ongoing happenings in Bangladesh worry the peace-loving people around the world. None gets logic why a controversially elected government that claims to believe in democracy could be so cruel and remain in power…
Tolerate, respect and honour each other – have dialogue
Mostafa Kamal Majumder All in Bangladesh have remained in a state of despair with the warring sides the AL-led alliance in the government and the Bnp-led alliance waging movement in the form of blockade not buzzing an inch from their…
HR worsens with pol violence: Amnesty for neutral inquiry, fair trial
The human rights situation in Bangladesh continues to deteriorate as the government and opposition supporters have battled each other in the streets of Dhaka and other major cities in the past three weeks, Amnesty International has said in its latest…
Many renewable sources ‘now cheaper than fossil’
The cost of generating power from renewable energy sources has reached parity or dropped below the cost of fossil fuels for many technologies, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) has revealed. Irena’s “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2014” report concludes…
Shun violence, force; adopt peaceful means to bridge gap: TIB
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on Tuesday expressed deep concern over the on-going inhuman and cruel manifestation of violence and use of force in an unhealthy competition for power at the cost of basic rights of the people and prospect of…
Greenpeace fund freezing arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional: Delhi HC
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday unblocked the funds that were frozen by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs in June last year. The environmental NGO Greenpeace hailed the decision as a victory for democracy and free speech, and recognition…
Judiciary must guard the sustainability of Bangladesh democracy
Mostafa Kamal Majumder The outgoing Chief Justice of Bangladesh Mr. Justice Muzammel Hossain has on the last day of his office on Thursday underscored the need for balance of power between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary for a…
The importance of being angry
Robert J. Burrowes Unfortunately, in many circles, anger has a bad reputation. There are several reasons for this. One reason is that we are scared when people are angry at us, so we try to scare people, especially children, out…
Opinion: Understanding education for global citizenship
By Kartikeya V. Sarabhai Ahmedabad, India, Dec 2014 (IPS) – Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) brings together concerns about the environment, economic development and social aspects. Since 1972, when the first U.N. Conference on the Human Environment was held in…
Press Club’s free space for all should not be controverted
Mostafa Kamal Majumder There had been a new dimension in the movement of the opposition and the government’s technique of tackling the same. While the programme for the ‘democracy killing day’ of the Bnp-led 20-party alliance had began with the…
Northeast India in 2014: A wait for peace, progress
Nava Thakuria The year 2014 passed away with a major change of perception among the people of northeast India. The residents of the trouble-torn region unanimously urged for peace and development from the authorities concerned. They have also extended whole…
Aus school girls’ green X-mas tree formula!
A group of Australian school girls have discovered a method for keeping Christmas tree green afresh for a longer period by spraying hairspray on the plant. Spraying with hairspray found effective to keeping the tree greener and healthy for long…
End exploitation for domestic workers in the Gulf
Rothna Begum “I would wake up to start cooking, then cleaning, washing clothes, and then cooking again. No rest, there was just no rest… Because she kept yelling, I cried and asked to go back to [the recruitment] agency, but…
Environ minister tones down oil spill impact on Sunderbans
Environment and Forests Minister Anwar Hossain Manju on Friday said the oil-spill impacts on the Sundarbans’ biodiversity are not as adverse as it was feared. “The biodiversity and the aquatic animals have surely been affected by the oil slick caused…
Despite Lima: 2014 brought new momentum for climate action
Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International here is no question: COP20 utterly failed to translate the positive changes happening in the real world into the negotiated outcome. After China and the US had, for the first time ever together, agreed to reduce…
Lima climate talks and the path to Paris
Jacqueline Fa’amatuainu, University of Auckland The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Lima over the first two weeks of December continued in the wake of Typhoon Hagiput, which barreled through the Philippines. This progress was necessary…
Save the Sunderbans taking prompt actions
Save Suderbans not only verbally but also by taking actions immediately. Not very long ago, Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina urged the world leaders to save tigers in order to save nature from the 2nd Global tiger stocktaking conference held at…
Agri journalism course at DU
It is encouraging to learn through the Press that the Dhaka University (DU) is going to introduce a specialised course on agriculture journalism under the assistance of the agriculture development project, Catalyst. William H Allen, a professor of agriculture journalism…
Biocultural diversity combats climate change
Danielle Nierenberg and Sarah Small From the Saami in Europe, to the Maori in New Zealand, indigenous communities are creating and maintaining rich biocultural landscapes. A biocultural landscape is a holistic system of culture and nature that has been shaped…
Jatiya Press Club polls deferred to secure contest by all
An extraorfinary general meeting (EGM) of the National Press Club on Monday decided to hold the bianniel general meeting and election of its managing committee by 31 March next, as against the schedule to get it done by 30 December,…
Let nature play a role in climate adaptation, experts urge
LIMA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When the rainy season comes and floods the fields, poor families in northwest Bangladesh once cut trees to survive or went hungry. Now, however, they are raising fish in the floodplains – a change that…