
Philip Gain
Philip Gain is researcher and director of Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD). He has been reporting, writing and filming on Modhupur sal forest and its people since 1986.
Philip Gain is researcher and director of Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD). He has been reporting, writing and filming on Modhupur sal forest and its people since 1986.
Once a pure jungle, Modhupur sal forest is now, for the most part, a motley assortment of vast banana, pineapple and spice orchards.
Ratan Shadhu (56), a tea worker from Doloi Tea Garden in Moulvibazar district, earns a daily cash wage of Tk 102 (USD 1.2).
The indigenous communities of the plains of Bangladesh, including those in the tea gardens, are excluded and marginalised for their identity, occupations, casteism, culture, geographical locations, and various other reasons.
The tea plantation workers (TPWs) in some 60 tea gardens in Sylhet stopped work for a day or two in the beginning of the countrywide lockdown.
The coronavirus has affected us all—rich and poor alike. Yet, giving attention and care to communities considered excluded, marginalised and invisible should be a priority for the state and well-to-dos.
The tea workers of Shamshernagar Tea Garden in Kamalganj upazila, Moulvibazar, took matters into their own hands in defiance of the garden management and stopped work from March 27.
Purna Chisik and Satendra Nokrek have four daughters—Francila, Malita, Nomita and Malina—and two sons—Parmel and Sebastin.
14 Bede families have set up their oval-shaped makeshift tents on private land in Natun Torki, a village in Kalkini Upazila of Madaripur district. A branch of the Arialkha river flows on the west of Natun Torki. The area is well-known in Barishal for Torki Bandar, a narrow but flowing river on the west. The Bede huts are just on the outskirts of the crowded Natun Torki market.
We stand in the middle of Rohingya Camp No. 18. It is in the southwest of Kutupalong Rohingya camp cluster in Ukhia upazila of Cox's Bazar district. We are stunned.
Election of Bangladesh Cha Sramik Union (BCSU) on June 24 was a joyous occasion for tea workers. BCSU happens to be the largest trade union in Bangladesh. And it is the only union for the 97,646 voters who are all registered workers in 161 tea gardens in Sylhet, Maulvibazar, Habiganj, Chattogram and Rangamati Hill District. The recent election was the third time since 1948 that the impoverished tea workers had voted for their leaders.