3-day ‘Boisabi’ festival begins in Khagrachhari

The three-day long traditional 'Boisabi Festival' of the people of different ethnic communities in Khagrachhari began on Friday. The first day of the festival, known as 'Phul Biju', is celebrated by Chakma, Tripura, Marma communities by decorating their houses with flowers and also immersing them in rivers seeking blessings from the

“Adivasis drowning in abject poverty”

A rosy picture of national ethnic people dancing and singing adorned in traditional ethnic dress in most national events, cultural programmes on state-run television, Pahari (hill people) ethnic food festivals and recruitment in government jobs is not the true story of the life, livelihood and visibility of the Adivasis in

Indigenous forest dwellers fear losing ancestral land

When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare. Rema, from Pegmari village in Madhupur, Tangail district, had cultivated the banana plants on half an acre in the Madhupur Forest. But the Forest Department claimed that