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People of Satkhira are facing acute shortage of drinking water as the natural sources of sweet water were inundated when cyclone Aila struck the coastal of the country three months ago.
    ‘We usually drink pond water. But the pond water stinks from carcasses of animals and left saline after the storm,’ said Nometa Rani of Nowabeki village in Shyamnagore upazila.
   According to the officials, many embankments were totally washed away by the tidal surge, allowing intrusion of salt water over vast areas that will remain submerged unless the embankments are either built afresh or repaired in the district.
   Because of the submergence of land and ponds in salty water that continues to inundate the land bordering these rivers, drinking water will be hard to find. The underground water was too saline to be tapped and there was no drinking water source in that area, said Dilip Kumar Banik, upazila nirbahi officer of Shyamnagar upazila.
   The drinking water crisis was more acute at Gabura union in Shyamnagore with residents complaining of insufficient and poor quality of relief material supplied.
   More than 15,00 thousand tube-wells in the district have been out of order, triggering acute crisis of drinking water while water-borne diseases were spreading.
   Infiltration of saline water and filling of sand and mud after embankments and flood control dams were broken in the affected areas, especially on the shoals and coastal regions, damaged the tube wells.
   ‘Many farmlands are filled with saline water. Paddy yield would be very low this year even if there is good monsoon. If relief supply is stopped then these people would die of starvation and malnutrition,’ a programme manager of Oxfam said adding that they have requested the authorities to distribute relief materials till the next harvest.
   People have been facing water crisis as saline water inundated their areas, he said. The damage caused in Shyamnagar, Poddopukur and Assasuni upazila under Satkhira is extensive. People in these places don’t have any houses, water or sanitation facilities, he added.
   Cyclone Aila struck south-western coast of the Bangladesh on May 25, killing 190 people, injuring more than 7,000, and affecting more than 3.9 million. More than 600,000 thatched houses in 11 of the country’s 64 districts were damaged or destroyed, the Disaster Management Bureau reported.
   ‘The cyclone destroyed our home. Even if I return to my village, I don’t know how I will survive. My family lost everything to the cyclone,’ Nur Uddin of village Dumuria under Gabura union. Aila was the biggest natural calamity in country after the powerful cyclone Sidr hit the country’s south-western coastal belt on November 15, 2007, leaving more than 4,000 people dead or missing.

The pro-BNP-Jamaat lawyers of the Sirajganj district bar association formed a human chain in front of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court on Wednesday to protest at the Tuesday's rowdiness of the AL-solicitors in the courtroom of a senior judicial magistrate and also vandalising the court rooms by them.
   After facing police obstacle during the human chain programme, the lawyers loyal to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, later held a protest meeting at the conference room of the bar association with its president Moazzem Hossain in the chair.
   Speaking on the occasion, general secretary of the district bar Mir Ruhul Amin Babu demanded stern action against the AL-solicitors for the rowdiness in the courtroom of a judge and confining other judges also in the court building.
   He also protested at the police resistance to their human chain programme.
   However, public prosecutor Abdur Rahman, surrounded by his deputies in the court chamber, told the journalists that judicial magistrate Noor Alam had passed the bail order of Ataur Rahman, violating the rules.
   Later, he cancelled the bail order finding out his fault and no AL lawyer went into rowdiness in his courtroom or assaulted the judge, he added.
   The police arrested Ataur Rahman, an assistant professor of Political Science Department at the Sirajganj Government College, on Sunday on charges of making derogatory comments about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman while delivering lecture in the class of the 4th year students.
   Noor Alam, senior judicial magistrate, granted bail for the college teacher Ataur Rahman on Tuesday, which he was forced to cancel after four hours amid rowdiness of the AL-lawyers.

Frequent load-shedding coupled with power fluctuation has crippled public life in Panchagarh even in the current rainy season.
   Intermittent power supply is also seriously hampering industrial and business activities as well as household works in the district.
   According to sources at the Panchagarh Palli Bidyut Samity, there are a total of 26,335 power lines under the samity in five upazilas of the district.
   Of the total, 17,311 are domestic, 3,798 commercial, 2,209 industrial, 640 are used for sallow and deep tube wells and 4,013 for street lights.
   The rural areas under the Panchagarh PBS remains out of power for hours together a day. Sometimes the consumers have to wait for 18 to 20 hours for power supply.
   Students are the worst sufferers as they cannot prepare lessons in time.
   Md Abdul Momin, a student of BP Government High School in Panchagarh town, said that he faced sever problems in preparing homework due to frequent power outage.
   Md Abdus Samad, a trader in Jagdal area under sadar upazila, said business in the region was experiencing a dull time on account of load-shedding throughout the day.
   Md Rakibul Hasan, owner of a computer training centre in the district headquarters, said turnover in the centre had fallen largely compelling retrenchment of employees as a means of cost cut.
   Contacted, the deputy general manager of the PBS, Panchagarh zone, Shah Md Razzaqur Rahman, said load-shedding was mainly because of short supply from the Thakurgaon Power Development Board.
   He also said the district needed 13 to 15 megawatts of power a day whereas the PBD supplies only six to seven MW.

A minor boy was killed in a road accident in front of BP Government High in Panchagarh sadar upazila on Monday.
   The deceased is Shahinur, 10, son of Sarifuddin of village Dangapara under Phultala upazila of the district.
   The police said the boy died on the spot as a Dhaka-bound bus ran over him.

Two garment workers were killed and 20 another were injured in a road accident at Rajendrapur on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway in Gazipur on Wednesday.
   The deceased were Ibrahim Khalil, 20, of village Noagon at Debidwar in Comilla and Motaleb Hossain, 34, of village Bokail under Kotoali in Faridpur.
   The police said the bus carrying workers of Epllion garment factory fell into a road side ditch at about 8:30am, leaving two workers dead on the spot.

Lawenforcers seized 2,314 bottles of Phensidyl (codeine) syrup in separate drives in Jhenaidah and Jaipurhat on Tuesday and Wednesday, our district correspondents reported.
   In Jhenaidah, the Detective Branch of the police seized 1,000 bottles of Phensidyl syrup near the Jhenaidah police station from a Dhaka-bound private car Tuesday morning.
   The police arrested two persons for their alleged involvement in carrying the contraband drugs.
   The Jhenaidah DB officer-in-charge, Rezaul Karim, said they had stopped the car at about 6:30am and seized the Phensidyl. They also arrested Maram Ali of Moulavibazar in Sylhet and Faruque Hossain of Benapole in Jessore.
   The Rapid Action Battalion seized 1,314 bottles of the contraband drugs at Motihar on the Nababganj-Goraghat Road of Nababganj in Danajpur early Wednesday.
   The Jaipurhat RAB second-in-command, ASP Sharif, said a battalion team intercepted a truck and found 1,314 bottles Phensidyl there after searching it.

A youth was electrocuted at village Boro Anulia under Shibalaya police station in Manikganj on Monday.
   The deceased is Alaluddin, 25. He was the owner of an electronic shop at Aricha ghat. Locals said he was electrocuted at about 8:00pm when he was working at his shop.