Md. Mahbubul Huq for The Daily Star The engine behind a city is, apparently, its mayor. He is the chief of local government administration. Local government administration is responsible for providing services such as: fire safety, police protection, any emergency services, public school, water and sewerage, city planning, maintaining local environmental health, garbage collection, public ... Read more
Sections
A modern day kobiraj
Jawad Hossain Nirjhor for The News Today This article is about alternative medical practices that are adopted by poor people suffering from myriad illnesses, giving us a glimpse of the health conditions and sufferings of the underprivileged population in this country. Afsar Ahamed lay near a corner of a street in Hatirpool, huddled in pain. ... Read more
Infectious diseases and vaccine sciences
What does the Programme do? ICDDR,B is a vibrant institution with various experts actively engaged in research on infectious diseases. Microbiologists conduct fundamental research on the characteristics of pathogens. Immunologists study host defences, including potential vaccine candidates. Clinical scientists study the diseases caused by these infectious agents and evaluate optimum therapy in infected patients. Epidemiologists study ... Read more
Unique pig-nosed turtle is over-harvested in New Guinea
Numbers of pig-nosed turtles have declined steeply over the past 30 years, researchers have discovered. The unique reptile has become an international conservation icon, due to it having no close relatives and being considered the turtle most adapted to life underwater in freshwater ponds and rivers. Yet demand for its eggs and meat in Papua ... Read more
Managing macroeconomy
Sadiq Ahmed for The Daily Star Bangladesh has achieved good economic performance over the past few years. It has successfully managed the transition from the global financial crisis of 2008-10 with relatively modest slowdown in economic activity. Economic growth has recovered and official data suggest that growth is on the upswing. While there is some ... Read more
‘Ants can identify their worst enemy’
A study of the ant species Temnothorax longispinosus has revealed that it can spot its worst enemy and react with appropriate aggression. The ant colonies are often invaded by slavemaker ants, which steal their pupae. So when the ants spot a slavemaker, they attempt to kill it by biting and stinging. But the insects do ... Read more
Birds eavesdrop on predator chipmunks
Ground-nesting birds eavesdrop on chipmunks in order to protect their nests, according to scientists. Ovenbirds and veeries live alongside egg-eating chipmunks in the Hudson Valley, New York, US. Researchers have found that when simulated chipmunk calls are played, the birds nest up to 20 metres further away. The study is the first to show that ... Read more
Evaluating services of Sundarbans
Muhammad Selim Hossain and Mohammed Abdul Baten for The Daily Star Forest is a bounteous gift of nature that provides the basis of life and livelihood for humans. According to human history, hunting and gathering, the first and foremost livelihood of homo sapiens, was forest based. Interestingly, mangrove is the most diverse forest and is ... Read more
Growth at the cost of environment?
Industrial Pollution Growth at the cost of environment? Md Koushik Ahmed for The Daily Star The “primitive accumulation” nature of developed countries to use all natural resources as inputs into a human devised system in the never ending quest for economic growth has led us to ask “what the future holds for us”. This growth ... Read more
The story & esoteric significance of Rath Yatra
By Dr. Subrato Ghosh for The News Today The story of the origin of Rath Yatra given by the Goswamis is practically unknown. As the gopis think and cry for Krishna, so He too was always immersed in their thought and would feel acute pangs of separation. HISTORY OF RATHA-YATRA Once Krishna was deeply thinking ... Read more
‘Shocking’ state of oceans threatens mass extinction
Overfishing and pollution putting fish, sharks and whales in extreme danger – with extinction ‘inevitable’, study finds. Fish, sharks, whales and other marine species are in imminent danger of an “unprecedented” and catastrophic extinction event at the hands of humankind, and are disappearing at a far faster rate than anyone had predicted, a study of ... Read more
Honey collection and biodiversity loss in mangrove ecosystem
Dr. M.A. Bashar for The Independent In Sundarbans ecosystem, honey and wax production is a major seasonal activity employing some 2000 honey collectors known as ‘mowallis’ and producing about 200 tonnes of honey and about 50 tonnes of bee wax which constitutes about 50 per cent of the total production in Bangladesh. So far information is ... Read more
Forest: The one and only address of inhabitable world
Dr. Md. Mizanur Rahman for The Daily Star Forest ecosystem provides benefits that support the livelihoods of countless human beings. Forests provide a number of components to the broad range of ecological services such as, regulation of rainfall and hydrological system; maintenance of soil quality, control of soil erosion, modulating climate; and being the habitat ... Read more
Wildlife in jeopardy
Hunger, death on offer as forests vanish fast The number of phone calls we receive every day is amazing. People call to say fishing cats have been killed or captured. Jungle cat kittens found. Vultures lying sick. And of course, tigers have been killed. If we put together all these pieces of information, we get ... Read more
Rabindranath: The Contemporary Forever!
By Aly Zaker It was in August of 1971. I was on an official mission of the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, escorting some foreign dignitaries to the refugee camp in the Salt Lake area ofCalcutta. After my official duty was over as I was getting ready to leave, I heard that the Mukti Shangrami’ Shilpi ... Read more
Struggle to Survive
By Jawad Hossain Nirjhor The ready-made garment industry employs around 3.5 million workers and accounts for 80 percent of the total export earnings is mainly depends on women workers .Following the countrywide demonstration last year, the minimum wage for the garment workers was slightly increased. On the eve of May Day, it is time to ... Read more
Junk science
Scientists are increasingly worried about the amount of debris orbiting the Earth, writes Dr K.H. Amin February 10th 2009 began like every other day in Iridium 33’s 11-year life. One of a constellation of 66 small satellites in orbit around the Earth, it spent its time whizzing through space, diligently shuttling signals to and from ... Read more
Impact on environment and health
Shipbreaking in South Asia Impact on environment and health Md. Abu Sayed Shipbreaking, referred to as ship recycling, is a type of ship disposal involving the dismantling of an obsolete vessel’s structure for scrapping or disposal. It includes a wide range of activities, from removing all gears and equipment to cutting down the ship’s infrastructure. ... Read more
Climate change and neglected tropical diseases
Khalid Md. Bahauddin Recent investigations attribute more than 150,000 deaths per year and a global disease burden to climate change. An area that has received particular attention is the potential impact of global warming on shifts in the spatio-temporal distribution of disease vectors, and hence the frequency and transmission dynamics of vector-borne diseases. Vectors, pathogens ... Read more
Organisational culture
Mamun Rashid From an academic perspective, we can look at the way Edgar Schein, a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, defines organisational culture as ‘a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well ... Read more