Himu's Window

Shamsul Huda, a beneficiary of the government's social safety net programmes, lives in a rickety little tin- shack in Noboganga area under Paba upazila of Rajshahi. With a mud-oven and two bamboo benches out front, the ramshackle structure resembles a shop more than it does a home. However, this is with good reason as Huda once used to sell tea and dry food items from the stall. "But it has become by home now," the 82-year-old said while describing how the government allowance he receives has fallen short of protecting him from complete poverty. Huda was 65 when he first started getting an old age allowance from the government in 2005. The shop still provided an income at the time and his sons where there to help out too. "I was doing well back then with all these helps," he said. But even though the monthly old age allowance was increased to Tk 500 from Tk 180 in fiscal year 2016-17, Huda's growing age and deteriorating health eventually caught up to him. ...

Rice yield is likely to dwindle to some extent in eight districts of Rajshahi division during this Boro season due to bad weather during the harvest period, officials and farmers said. Good weather persisted during the sowing and cultivation period, but the storms and rains started partially damaging crops in many areas since the harvest began in mid-April. Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) which warned farmers of more storms till the end of May is also another reason for crop damage in storms. Farmers cannot harvest Boro paddy before the storms as many of them cultivate additional crops before the proper sowing period of Boro paddy. This leads to crop damage, they said. Such as farmers in Rajshahi cultivate potatoes before boro and mustard in the Chalan beel areas covering Natore, Pabna and Sirajganj districts, delaying the boro cultivation, they said. The DAE has recorded a yield of 3.99 tonnes of rice per hectare as they accounted for a harvest of 31 per cent of 8,20,981 h...

H Ataur Rahman Akib started fishing when he was four and he was largely focused on his hobby and making baits until 2018. His passion took a new turn in the year when an amateur angler sent Akib Tk 2,000 and asked him to make baits for him. This was the beginning. When demands for his baits rose, he turned his hobby into a full-time commercial business. He did not have to look back since then. Today, Akib, who hails from Rajshahi, has a factory on the premises of his residence in the Thakurmara area in the northern city that manufactures eco-friendly baits for game fishing. In the last four years, baits made by Akib's company, Primitive Fishing by Akib, have gained immense popularity across the country and also beyond borders. The factory produces at least 14 types of baits. All products are sold in various districts in Bangladesh and are exported to India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, and Europe, especially in the UK. In 2019, he began by exporting 100 kilogrammes of baits, and this...

সম্প্রতি এক বিকেলে শহরের মোল্লাপাড়ার একটি পুকুরে মাছ ধরছিলেন রাজশাহীর উদ্যোক্তা এইচ আতাউর রহমান আকিব। মাছ ধরার জন্য নিজের কারখানায় তৈরি টোপ ও চার ব্যবহার করছিলেন তিনি। প্রতিবারই বড় বড় মাছ তার ছিপে আটকা পড়ছিল। কিন্তু ধরার সঙ্গে সঙ্গে সব মাছই আবার পুকুরে ছেড়ে দিচ্ছিলেন তিনি। 'মাছ ধরা আমার শখ। এত মাছ আমার প্রয়োজন নেই। বরং আমার টোপ ও চার যে মাছকে বোকা বানাতে পারছে এটা দেখতে পারাতেই আমার সার্থকতা'- বলছিলেন আকিব। গত এপ্রিলে আকিবের সঙ্গে তার অফিসে, মাছ ধরার পুকুর পাড়ে ও কারখানায় বসে কথা হয় এই প্রতিবেদকের। মাছ শিকারের এমন নৈতিক ধারণা পাঁচ বছর আগে দেশে আকিবই আনুষ্ঠানিকভাবে প্রথম প্রচার শুরু করেন বলে জানান। তবে সেখানেই তিনি থেমে থাকেননি। শখের বশে তার মাছ ধরার নেশা থেকে নতুন এক পেশার সন্ধানও পেয়েছেন তিনি। রাজশাহী শহরের ঠাকুরমারা এলাকায় তার বাসভবন প্রাঙ্গণে টোপ ও চার তৈরির একটি কারখানা স্থাপন করেছেন। সেখানে প্রচলিত রাসায়নিক ও ক্ষতিকর পদ্ধতির বদলে তিনি বাণিজ্যিকভিত্তিতে পরিবেশবান্ধব টোপ ও চার তৈরি করছেন। ৪ বছরে আকিবের প্রতিষ্ঠান 'প্রিমিটিভ ফিশিং বাই আকিব' এর তৈরি টোপ ও চারের জনপ্রিয়...

An annoyed Shovon Das was walking home with a five-liter bottle of soybean oil from Shaheb Bazar in Rajshahi city yesterday afternoon. He had paid Tk 985 for it even though the government set the price at Tk 760. Shovon was lucky that he ran into a team of the Directorate of National Consumers Right Protection (DNCRP) which took him back to the retailer and forced the shopkeeper to pay him back the additional sum he took from Shovon. The team also fined the shop owner Tk 5,000. Since Monday, police and DNCRP members have been raiding markets to stop retailers from overcharging consumers of soybean oil. Some traders illegally stockpiled the edible oil creating an artificial crisis and many of them were caught when they started selling off the oil at higher prices, officials concerned said. Hasan Al Maruf, an assistant director of the DNCRP in Rajshahi, said the unscrupulous traders were now selling soybean oil they bought earlier at lower rates. Secretary of Bangladesh Vegetable Oil Re...