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Incidents of child marriage are on the rise at different villages, particularly in char areas of all the five upazilas in the poverty-stricken district of Lalmonirhat.
   A survey conducted by Jago Nari Kalyan Sangstha, a local NGO, shows that more than 100 child marriages took place at 50 villages in four months to April this year.
   Besides, out of total 500 marriages taking place during the period, 200 do not have registration, according to the survey that covered 30 char and 20 border villages.
   Although, marriage of a girl below the age of 18 and a boy below 20 is restricted, parents marry off their underage daughters and sons because of poverty, local sources said.
   Many girls are married off by their poor parents in rural areas even before they reach the teen-age, the sources said.
   Some affluent people marry poor girls for using them as domestic help, according to the locals.
   Some local people alleged that marriage registrars are mare mainly responsible for child marriages, saying they conduct such marriages by hiding the actual age of boys and girls by taking money beyond the registration
   fee.
   When contacted, Nari Kalyan Sangstha executive director Shamsunnahar Begum Mili, put the blame on marriage registrars for continued child marriages in the district.
   ‘No child marriage can takes place if the registrars remains alert against holding of early marriages,’ Shamsunnahar said.
   Currently, the NGO is conducting a mass awareness programme in rural areas to stop child marriages in the district, she added.

Indigenous fish species are on the verge of extinction in Narail because of siltation of rivers, their tributaries and different water bodies.
   Few years back, various species of fish were found aplainty in the rivers Chitra, Nabaganga, Modhumoti, Afra, Kazla and different water bodies including haors, canals and beels.
   But the scenario has changed as fishermen no longer can net as much fish as they could in the recent past, locals said.
   Livelihood of fishermen in the district has been threatened.
   Local people now depend on only shrimp produced in enclosures to meet their protein demand.
   The indigenous fish species facing extinction are ruhit, katla, chitol, puti, taki, tengra, shoil, gojar, boal, chanda, sharputi and bain.
   A good number of fishermen have already changed their profession because of scarcity of indigenous fish species.
   The fishermen, who are yet to switch over to other professions, are leading a miserable life, local sources said.
   Taimur, a fisherman has become a day labourer. He said ‘If I remaind with fishing profession, my family had to pass days in starvation’.
   District fisheries department sources said breeding fields of indigenous species have drastically reduced in the district because of siltation of rivers, their tributaries and water bodies.
   The water bodies are important not only for fish production but also for generating employment for many people, the lovals said.
   They blamed over-fishing, environmental degradation like siltation and pollution of water bodies for use of fertiliser and pesticides, and lack of fish sanctuaries for the gradual extinction of indigenous fish species.

Despite a ban for the past three decades, low quality guidebooks of classes, ranging from IV to X, with numerous mistakes and wrong information have flooded the textbook markets in Noakhali.
   The education ministry slapped the ban on guidebooks on February 27 in 1980. According to the law, it is a punishable offence to print, publish and distribute guidebooks for the students ranging from class IV to X.
   ‘But the illegal practice still continues,’ said Md Abul Kashem, headmaster of MA Sattar High School.
   ‘It is regrettable that the authorities concerned have done little to enforce the law effectively,’ he said, adding, ‘As a result, the sale of illegal guidebooks is going on unabated.’
   Even the National Curriculum and Textbook Board did not take any steps to stop the sale of the guidebooks, teachers and guardians said.
   The banned guide books are on open sale in the markets of Chaumuhani, Chandraganj, Maijdee Court, Hatiya Bazar, Bashurhat, Chatkhil, Sonaimuri and different upzila headquarters of the district.
   ‘We sell the notebooks and guidebooks since they are in great demand,’ a book seller at Chaumuhani Bazar, seeking anonymity, told New Age.

The Border Security Force of India shot dead two Bangladeshi nationals at Roumari in Kurigram early Tuesday.
   The victims were two shiblings Ayub, 31, and Aminul, 27, of Ulgar Char in Roumari upazila.
   BDR sources said Indian border guards opened fire on Ayub and Aminul when they went to a place near the international border piller to resond call of nature. The two died on the spot.
   After the killing, the BSF took away the bodies.

The Rapid Action Battalion seized a truck with smuggled fertiliser from Punat Bazar on the Jaipurhat-Bogra Road at Kalai in Jaipurhat early Tuesday.
   On a tip-off, the battalion team captured the truck and seized 240 sacks of contraband MOP and DAP fertiliser, worth Tk 30 lakh, smuggled from India.
   A case was filed with the Kalai police.