News stories by Naimul Haq, page 6

Bangladesh, which has shown low HIV prevalence rates so far, may be silently moving towards an epidemic, say experts who point to underreporting and poor monitoring for the virus in the general population.

Experts believe that the upcoming United Nations Earth Summit, Rio+ 20, scheduled to take place in Brazil from Jun.20-22, could be a real opportunity for Bangladesh to negotiate a road to sustainable development.

Caught between arsenic contaminated groundwater and diarrhoea-causing microbes in its ponds and rivers, achieving the millennium development goal of providing access to safe drinking water for its 160 million people by 2015 is a tough call for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh continues to score good grades in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of gender parity in education by 2015, with the trend of more girls than boys attending primary school accelerating this year.

The Aditmari Maternity Centre (AMC) is unpretentious but hygienic, and its staff of paramedics welcomes pregnant women from the poor farming villages of this district, 375 km northwest of Dhaka.

Kalpana Rani Pal’s pottery business is modest by any yardstick but it is small enterprises like these that are helping reduce poverty levels in Bangladesh.

'Welcome to Krishi (farming) Radio. You are listening to FM 98.8 megahertz and I am your hostess Shahnaz Parvin,' the local community radio crackles over the mobile phones and transistors of residents in coastal Barguna district.

With floods, droughts and other calamities battering deltaic Bangladesh regularly, farmers need little prompting in switching to climate-resistant varieties of rice, wheat, pulses and other staples.

The sun never shone brighter on rural Bangladesh with low power solar systems transforming the lives of tens of millions of marginalised rural people who are unconnected to the national grid.

Mosammet Monwara walks more than three km every alternate day to fetch water for her family of five in a heavy earthen pitcher.