Bangladesh

For much of the 20th century, the grey, gargantuan Dunlop factory in Bandel, West Bengal was the main source of work for local families. But from the 1990s onwards, the factory was closed more often than it was open. “People would turn up every day hoping to get a shift,” says the playwright Sonali Bhattacharyya. “It felt like a throwback to what I...

At least 49 people died and hundreds have been injured after a fire tore through a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, sparking a huge chemical explosion that engulfed many of those who had rushed to the scene to help. The death toll is expected to rise.

More than 300 people were injured in the incident, many of whom sustained life-threatening...

This is a moving and disturbing story (‘Every year it gets worse’: on the frontline of the climate crisis in Bangladesh, 5 July) – a wake-up call to all of us about the direct environmental and indirect social and political consequences of our (the developed world’s) dependency on fossil fuels. One of the world’s poorest countries, with a popul...

At least 59 people died as floods cut a swatch across north-eastern India and Bangladesh, leaving millions of homes underwater, authorities said on Saturday.

In India’s Assam state, 18 people died in the floods or landslides and 2 million others had seen their homes submerged in flood waters since Thursday, the state disaster management agency said....

Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions stranded and at least 57 dead, officials say.

In Bangladesh, about 2 million people have been marooned by the worst floods in the country’s north-east for nearly two decades.

At least 100 villages at Zakiganj were inundated after floodwater rushing from...

Over the past month, the people of Bangladesh have suffered the worst flooding in living memory. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and 7.2 million have been impacted, according to the UN.

Reporter Thaslima Begum tells Hannah Moore about the efforts to rescue people in the Sylhet region. She’s been speaking to Amina Ahmed, who d...

The BBC has agreed to pay £30,000 in damages to a British Bangladeshi Labour councillor after it mixed her up with Apsana Begum in a news item about the MP facing housing fraud charges.

Pictures of Liza Begum at an event to launch Labour’s 2019 race and faith manifesto were broadcast on BBC London News during an exchange on 29 October 2020, in...

The British government forced through £4.2bn in aid cuts so quickly it had little time to plan the impact they would have, or consult partners, according to an official audit.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said bilateral spending – aid given directly to another government – faced some of the harshest cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and...

Ever since she was a little girl, Amina Ahmed has been afraid of the water. Growing up in Sylhet, north-east of Bangladesh, the heavy rainfall that typically occurs during monsoon season would make her anxious.

But this year’s flooding has been unlike anything she’s ever seen before. “Every year, it gets a little worse but I don’t think anyone expec...

A former government economist has said that aid is “close to irrelevant” in solving the problems of developing countries.

Nations that achieved fast growth and declines in poverty, such as Bangladesh and Ghana, do so thanks to their own wealthy elites and not to outside help, argues Stefan Dercon.

Low-wage migrant workers have been forced to pay billions of dollars in recruitment fees to secure their jobs in World Cup host nation Qatar over the past decade, a Guardian investigation has found.

Bangladeshi men migrating to Qatar are likely to have paid about $1.5bn (£1.14bn) in fees, and possibly as high as $2bn, between 2011 and 2020. Nepali...

Asadul Islam peers into his pond in south-west Bangladesh and watches as hundreds of caged crabs float past beneath him. He is looking for those that have shed their hard shell. When he finds one, he has a short window to freeze it and send it off for sale to westerners with a taste for soft-shelled crabs.

He hopes this new business venture will...

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have welcomed the announcement by the US that it considers the violent repression of their largely Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar a genocide.

“We are very happy on the declaration of the genocide; many many thanks,” said 60-year-old Sala Uddin, who lives at Kutupalong camp, one of the many in Cox’s Bazar district that...