Live
- ‘Jitender Reddy’ review: A courageous biopic
- ‘Jathara’ movie review: A rural revenge saga wrapped in tradition
- PM Modi’s ‘Bharat 6G Vision’ poised to get another booster
- Social media doing harm to youngsters, calling time on it: Australian PM Albanese
- Gut microbiome changes may signal onset of rheumatoid arthritis
- Caste census, a historic benchmark in country: MLA Prakash
- Siddharth and Ashika Ranganath’s ‘Miss You’ Set for November 29 Release
- Cops return kidnapped woman within 24 hours
- IT Min lays foundation stone for Co-operative Central Bank building
- Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Divorce Rumors: Family Denies Affair with Nimrat Kaur
This country emulates India, gives its rivers 'legal persons' status
The court appointed the country's River Conservation Commission as the legal guardian of all waterways and directed other state agencies to fully assist them.
DHAKA: Bangladesh's high court has granted the country's rivers the rights and status of "living entities" in a bid to save them from encroachment, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The court on Monday published a landmark verdict on a 2016 petition filed by a Dhaka-based rights group, saying all of the country's hundreds of rivers would now be treated as legal persons, litigator Manzil Murshid said.
"We filed the petition to save our rivers from powerful encroachers. The court has declared that all the rivers should now have the same rights as legal persons or living entities," he said.
The verdict came just months after the country, much of it crisscrossed by thousands of streams, tributaries and rivers, became the fourth nation after Colombia, India and New Zealand to honour its waterways with such status.
The court appointed the country's River Conservation Commission as the legal guardian of all waterways and directed other state agencies to fully assist them.
Experts said the verdict would save rivers from illegal encroachment in the densely populated country of about 17 crore people and where land is precious as gold.
They said many of the country's rivers are struggling to survive thanks to illegal sand dredging and large-scale industrial pollution.
"This verdict is very good news for us. We hope the commission can now work freely and save the rivers from premature deaths," said Sheikh Rokon, a spokesman for the Riverine People group.
He said the high court would empower the commission to take strict action against encroachers, polluters and illegal dredging companies.
National River Conservation Commission of Bangladesh chairman Mujibur Rahman Howlader said the "unprecedented order would help the vast ecology and biodiversity" of Bangladesh's rich river system. "We feel strengthened. It reminds us the rivers are not anybody's property. We can now enforce a zero-tolerance policy against encroachers."
