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…
Category: Think green
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Secondhand smoke too dreadfully dangerous
Mir Lutful Kabir Saadi Secondhand smoke is simply other people’s tobacco smoke. Wherever people smoke, there is secondhand smoke in the air. There is no doubt breathing second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) is dreadfully dangerous to health. It causes cancer, as…
Universal Health Coverage Day
On December 12, 2014, the first ever Universal Health Coverage Day was observed throughout the world. The United Nations in its 67th General Assembly unanimously endorsed Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as an important step in the global fight against health…
Green activists for immediate steps to remove spilled oil
Green activists from separate demonstrations in the capital and Barisal on Friday demanded that the government take immediate steps to remove oil spilled across a vast area of the Sundarbans from an oil tanker. In the capital, Sundarbans Rakkha Jatiya…
The missing oceans
Ronny Jumeau, Seychelles Ambassador for Climate Change and SIDS Issues For islanders, the ocean is never an afterthought. The ocean is at the core of every part of our lives; we are shaped by it and in turn the way…
Water needs to be put on the global climate finance agenda
Maika Müller, Global Water Partnership (GWP) Water is the common medium through which a changing climate impacts us, but it is also the bloodstream of our universal wellbeing. The impacts of climate change through water are revealed in extreme weather…
Renewable energy market barriers in Latin America, the Caribbean
Washington DC – The region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is already a global low-carbon leader in terms of power generation from hydrological and biomass resources. Declining costs, maturing technologies, and vast untapped potentials including geothermal, solar, and…
International Year of Soils-2015
Soil is a vital contributor to human well-being. Soil is a key element of agriculture on which crops are being grown for the consumption of humans and animals as food. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, 95% of…
Green product certification: A tool for combating climate change
Shalini Sharma All major cities in India are now witnessing major infrastructure growth and expansion of their boundaries. With this massive infrastructure construction underway, the resources of cities are put under stress. Energy requirements are skyrocketing, which places a huge…
Climate justice is the only way to solve our climate crisis
By Jagoda Munic LIMA,(IPS) – In November, the world’s top climate scientists issued their latest warning that the climate crisis is rapidly worsening on a number of fronts, and that we must stop our climate-polluting way of producing energy if…
Optimum aquifer recharge, viable abstraction in Barind area urged
Optimum aquifer recharge in the Hard Barind area is very important to protect its overall public health alongside the existing agricultural ecosystem by managing a groundwater basin efficiently and effectively, scientists and researchers at a workshop here said Saturday. They…
Sustainability both a risk and opportunity
By Grace Chua Singapore’s Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu on Tuesday urged businesses to be aware of their responsibility to the environment, observing that being sustainable can also open up business opportunities. Addressing 450 business…
Rise and Shine: Haiti’s sustainable energy future
Washington D.C- Haiti’s electricity sector stands at a crossroads. Haiti depends on imported petroleum for 85% of its electricity generation, diverting 7 percent of its annual gross domestic product to importing fuel. Still, only 25% of the Haitian population has…
Nine ways to a food waste-free thanksgiving!
by Danielle Nierenberg, Sarah Small, and Kathleen Murphy Thanksgiving is a good time to remember to be grateful for farmers, farm laborers, cooks, and food service workers. Unfortunately, while we are giving thanks for the harvest, we are also wasting…
Who pays the real cost of cheap products?
Sudhirendar Sharma With online retailers in fierce competition to lure internet-savvy consumers, markets are abuzz with a wide range of cheap products on offer. The convenience of online shopping has helped consumers throw caution during economic slowdown to the winds.…
Nobel Laureate’s dream of an unemployment-free society
Mostafa Kamal Majumder Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus has called for redesigning the economy to redesign the world. His short write-up published in the news media on Monday has been received by readers across the globe with praise for his…
Cat show in Dhaka!
Recently a cat show was held at National Press Club Dhaka organised by Cat Concern, an affiliate of Animal Concern of Bangladesh to express love and concern for the animals, especially the pets. It was stated to be the first…
Redesigning economics to redesign the World
Muhammad Yunus Will the present economic system be able to establish appropriate level of moral, social, and material balance in the world? I don’t think it can. The present system is like an impersonal sucking machine which thrives on continuously…
Curd, yoghurt good probiotics
Both curd and yoghurt are good for health. Both are milk products created by fermenting milk– yoghurt by fermenting milk using bacteria and curd by curdling milk with an edible acidic substance such as lemon juice or vinegar.
Violence against children: UN gets it wrong
Robert J. Burrowes The United Nations has just issued a report, ‘Why Children’s Protection from Violence should be at the Heart of the Post-2015 Development Agenda’ http://srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org/sites/default/files/publications_final/why_childrens_protection_from_violence_should_be_at_the_heart_of_%20the_post_2015_development_agenda.pdf This is a worthy ideal. Unfortunately, the UN Report does not identify the…
Too young to smoke, old enough to harvest tobacco?
Margaret Wurth Some companies even allow for lower standards of protection for children in their US supply chain than for those elsewhere. Grace, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, doesn’t smoke – at 15, she’s too young…