Asia Water Wire - Bangladesh

Water A Precious Commodity in Slums

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:25:00 -0600

By Morshed Ali Khan

DHAKA, Nov 23 (Asia Water Wire) - Rokeya Begum, her two children and her husband
Abdul Latif, a rickshaw puller, live in Begunbari Basti, one of many slums here in the Bangladeshi capital.

Tanneries ‘Kill’ the Buriganga River

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 23:05:14 -0500

By Morshed Ali Khan

BASILA, Bangladesh Sep 11 (Asia Water Wire) - Until about five years ago, the Buriganga River near Dhaka had enough fish to support the roughly 100 families that live in this settlement, located on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital.

Building Frenzy Eats Into Flood Protection Plans

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:19:11 -0600

By Morshed Ali Khan

DHAKA (Asia Water Wire) - Environmentalists are fighting a desperate battle against land developers, who have defied all bans and continued to fill up vast areas in the periphery of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka that have been earmarked in the city's master plan for flood retention plains.

This battle has serious implications for the more than 12 million people crammed in 360 square kilometres in Dhaka, one of the fastest growing metropolises in the world where pressure on its limited land resources is phenomenal.

On the River Dharla, Life's Not Quite the Same

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:45:49 -0600

By Morshed Ali Khan

SHONAIKAIZI, Bangladesh (Asia Water Wire) - Fresh monsoon water rushed down from the Assam highland onto the river Dharla in Bangladesh, near the Moghulhat border, about 300 kilometres northwest of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

As usual, the Dharla had been dormant for well over eight months. She suddenly woke up with her shallow, sandy bed embracing the rushing water. Villages on both banks still remained a mile away from the stream formed by the early monsoon rains in the upstream.

India's Ambitious River-linking Plan Irks Bangladesh

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:46:06 -0600

By Sultana Rahman

DHAKA (Asia Water Wire) - India’s ambitious multi-billion dollar project to connect major rivers in South Asia to augment water supply in its southern states threatens to alter large ecosystems in neighbouring Bangladesh.

This is in addition to criticism that the water diversion plan would displace tribal people and lacks transparency, apart from the fact that Bangladesh remembers tough lessons from negative transboundary impacts from the construction of the Farraka Barrage by India some three decades ago.

Groundwater Goes Down, Down and Down

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 06:15:18 -0600

By Sultana Rahman

DHAKA – If residents begin saying that they would rather avoid taking daily baths, the water quality must really be bad.

But that is exactly what people like Koyel Islam, a homemaker in Mirpur suburb of this megacity of 12 million people, say, especially during the summer. “The situation is beyond imagination. We have never been gripped in such a crisis. We use whatever water we manage to get only for cooking and drinking. Sometimes we have to avoid daily baths," she says.