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Sitakunda Upazila

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143-518: Sitakunda ( Bengali : সীতাকুণ্ড Shitakunḍo, IPA: [ʃitakunɖo] ) is an upazila in the Chattogram District of Chattogram Division , Bangladesh . It includes one urban settlement, the Sitakunda Town , and 10 unions . Sitakunda is the home of the country's first eco-park , as well as alternative energy projects, specifically wind energy and geothermal power . Sitakunda

286-630: A tidal bore four years earlier. On 15 February 1950, Hindu pilgrims form all over East Bengal , Tripura and Assam arriving for Maha Shivaratri were attacked by the Ansars and armed Muslim mobs and massacred at the Sitakunda railway station . During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, Sitakunda was part of Sector 1 , led by Ziaur Rahman and Major Rafiqul Islam of the Mukti Bahini ,

429-874: A water divide between the Halda Valley and the Sandwip Channel. The 88 kilometres (55 mi) -long Halda flows from Khagrachari to the Bay of Bangal, and is one of the six tributaries of Karnafuli, the major river in the area. Sandwip Channel represents the northern end of the western part of the Chittagong-Tripura Folded Belt . The structure contains a thick sedimentary sequence of sandstone, shale and siltstone. The exposed sedimentary rock sequences except limestone, 6,500 metres (21,325 ft) thick in an average, provide no difference in overall lithology of Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts. The Sitakunda fold

572-492: A bid to lessen this burden on young learners, efforts have been made by educational institutions in the two main Bengali-speaking regions (West Bengal and Bangladesh) to address the opaque nature of many consonant clusters, and as a result, modern Bengali textbooks are beginning to contain more and more "transparent" graphical forms of consonant clusters, in which the constituent consonants of a cluster are readily apparent from

715-474: A day and have little access to medical treatment. Among the workers, 41% of are aged between 18 and 22 years, and many are reported to be as young as 10 years of age. There have also been allegations of large quantities of steel and non-ferrous items, such as bronze , aluminum, copper, and bronze- amalgam recovered from ship breaking being smuggled out of Bangladesh. There also are reports of pirates targeting tugboats pulling ships in. Employment of local people

858-424: A decline in the number of ships scrapped annually – down from 70–80 to about 20 – and because of environmental and work safety concerns. There have been complaints that journalists and human rights activists are being barred from the ship breaking yards. The ship breaking industry is purportedly damaging the local ecology as well, taking a toll on the fish population and soil quality. A survey conducted by students of

1001-454: A derivative of Bengali spoken by 14 million people mainly in the Chittagong district, is the dominant language. Sitakunda as a thana came into existence in 1879, and was renamed to Sitakunda Upazila in 1983. It ranks third in area and sixth in population out of the 26 upazilas and thanas of Chittagong. Sitakunda Town , with an area of 28.63 square kilometres (11.05 sq mi) and

1144-590: A different word from a speaker of Standard Bengali in Bangladesh, even though both words are of native Bengali descent. For example, the word salt is লবণ lôbôṇ in the east which corresponds to নুন nun in the west. Bengali exhibits diglossia , though some scholars have proposed triglossia or even n-glossia or heteroglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language. Two styles of writing have emerged, involving somewhat different vocabularies and syntax : Linguist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar categorises

1287-480: A diphthong. The total number of diphthongs is not established, with bounds at 17 and 31. An incomplete chart is given by Sarkar (1985) of the following: In standard Bengali, stress is predominantly initial. Bengali words are virtually all trochaic ; the primary stress falls on the initial syllable of the word, while secondary stress often falls on all odd-numbered syllables thereafter, giving strings such as in সহযোগিতা shô -hô- jo -gi- ta "cooperation", where

1430-444: A gender ratio of 121:100. The average population of component administrative units of the upazila are 4,072 for wards, 1,666 for mahallas , 29,853 for unions , 5,060 for mouzas (revenue villages) and 5,060 for villages reported by the census. Out of the 69 mauzas here, 8 have less than 50 households, while 27 have more than 600 households. Of the villages, 8 have a population of less than 250, while 29 have more than 2,500. As of 2001,

1573-672: A large scale and were communally limited. Owing to Bengal's geographic location, Bengali areas bordering non-Bengali regions have been influenced by each other. Small numbers of people in Midnapore , which borders Odisha , have used the Odia script to write in Bengali. In the border areas between West Bengal and Bihar , some Bengali communities historically wrote Bengali in Devanagari , Kaithi and Tirhuta . In Sylhet and Bankura , modified versions of

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1716-607: A majority in Bangladesh speaks dialects notably different from SCB. Some dialects, particularly those of the Chittagong region, bear only a superficial resemblance to SCB. The dialect in the Chittagong region is least widely understood by the general body of Bengalis. The majority of Bengalis are able to communicate in more than one variety – often, speakers are fluent in Cholitobhasha (SCB) and one or more regional dialects. Even in SCB,

1859-622: A mangrove plantation just south of the sea-wall sustained damage to less than 1% of its trees, most of which recovered within six months. The planted mangrove forest that helped Sitakunda to escape as one of the least damaged areas during the devastating 1991 Bangladesh cyclone is under threat from illegal tree-cutting by ship-breakers in the area. Annual average temperature is between 32.5 °C (91 °F) and 13.5 °C (56 °F), with an annual rainfall of 2,687 millimetres (106 in). Along with Chittagong and Hathazari, in June 2007 Sitakunda

2002-408: A minor dispute. On 29 July 1996, two ICS members of the college were abducted and one of them was killed. Bangladesh Military Academy is also situated in this upazila. As of 2001, average literacy of Sitakunda Upazila for people of 7 years of age or more is 54.6%, while the average literacy of Sitakunda Pourashabha is 53.9%. There has been an overall growth of 32.9% between 1991 and 2001, which for men

2145-518: A number of articles and books: "An Indian City Five Thousand Years Ago"; "Mohenjo-Daro" (in Bangla, Basumati, 1331 BS); Prehistoric, Ancient and Hindu India (posthumously published, 1934) and Mahenjo-Daro – A Forgotten Report . Bandyopadhyay wrote two textbooks for Calcutta University, namely, History of India (1924) and A Junior History of India (1928). His The Age of the Imperial Guptas (1933)

2288-586: A part in the adoption of the English alphabet to write Bengali, with certain social media influencers publishing entire novels in Roman Bengali. Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay Rakhal Das Banerji , also Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay (12 April 1885 – 23 May 1930), was an Indian archaeologist and an officer of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). In 1919, he became the second ASI officer deputed to survey

2431-517: A population of 36,650, is the administrative center and the sole municipality ( Pourashabha ) of Sitakunda Upazila. Badiul Alam is the incumbent mayor of the town, he was first elected in 2015 and again in 2020 in the Sitakunda municipality election, he is a Awami League politician. The rest of the area is rural and organized into 10 union councils ( union parishads ), namely Banshbaria, Barabkunda, Bariadyala, Bhatiari, Kumira, Muradpur, Salimpur, Sonaichhari, Saidpur and Bhatiari Cantonment Area. The area

2574-674: A preponderance of deciduous species with a levelled distribution. The topmost level consists of Garjan ( Dipterocarpus alatus ), Telsur ( Hopea odorata ), Chapalish ( Artocarpus chaplasha ), Chundul ( Tetrameles nudiflora ) and Koroi or the Moluccan albizia ( Falcataria moluccana ). The lower level consists of species of Jarul ( Lagerstroemia speciosa ), Toon ( Toona ciliata ), Jam ( Syzygium cumini ), Jalpai ( Elaeocarpus robustus ) and Glochidion. Lianas , epiphytes (mostly of orchids, asclepiads, ferns and leafy mosses) and herbaceous undergrowths are abundant. Savannah formations are found in

2717-562: A rounded total of 280 million) worldwide. The Bengali language is native to the region of Bengal , which comprises the present-day nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal . Besides the native region it is also spoken by the Bengalis living in Tripura , southern Assam and the Bengali population in the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Bengali is also spoken in

2860-786: A seismic tremor on 7 November 2007, fire broke out at the Bakharabad Gas Systems Limited in the Faujderhat area of the upazila when a pipeline was fractured. The Girujan Clay Formation runs through Sitakunda at a thickness of 168 metres (551 ft). In the Sitakunda hills, the Boka Bil Shale Formation contains Ostrea digitalina , Ostrea gryphoides and numerous plates of Balanus (a type of barnacles ), fragments of Arca , Pecten , Trochus , Oliva and corals . Both formations were identified and named by early 20th-century British petroleum geologist P. Evans. As of

3003-426: A small share of the commuter traffic load. By 2003, there were a total of 112 kilometres (70 mi) of paved roads in the upazila, along with 256 kilometres (159 mi) of mud roads, as well as five ferry-gauts or river docks for the use of barge -type ferryboats. The traditional bullock carts are now rarely seen in the upazila. Sitakunda was to be the landing station for a submarine communications cable , but

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3146-408: A special diacritic, called the hôsôntô (্) , may be added below the basic consonant grapheme (as in ম্ [m] ). This diacritic, however, is not common and is chiefly employed as a guide to pronunciation. The abugida nature of Bengali consonant graphemes is not consistent, however. Often, syllable-final consonant graphemes, though not marked by a hôsôntô , may carry no inherent vowel sound (as in

3289-575: A state language of the then Dominion of Pakistan . On 21 February 1952, five students and political activists were killed during protests near the campus of the University of Dhaka ; they were the first ever martyrs to die for their right to speak their mother tongue. In 1956, Bengali was made a state language of Pakistan. 21 February has since been observed as Language Movement Day in Bangladesh and has also been commemorated as International Mother Language Day by UNESCO every year since 2000. In 2010,

3432-548: A veterinary treatment centre. Bangladesh Railway set up the hospital at Kumira in 1952 with a capacity of 150 beds. The capacity was reduced to 50 beds in 1994 as some focus was redirected to the Railway Hospital at Central Railway Building in Chittagong. Originally built to treat railway employees, the hospital now also treats people from the wider community. Malaria , dengue and other fevers, hepatitis , as well as respiratory infections including tuberculosis are some of

3575-463: A vowel in isolation from any preceding or following consonant, the independent form of the vowel is used. For example, in মই [moj] "ladder" and in ইলিশ [iliʃ] "Hilsa fish", the independent form of the vowel ই is used (cf. the dependent form ি) . A vowel at the beginning of a word is always realised using its independent form. In addition to the inherent-vowel-suppressing hôsôntô , three more diacritics are commonly used in Bengali. These are

3718-639: Is Kushana period. His three other novels, namely, Dhruba , Karuna (1917) and Shashanka (1914) are set in the different phases of the Gupta period. His Dharmapala (1915) narrates the story of the Pala emperor Dharmapala . Mayukh (1916) describes the Portuguese atrocities in Bengal during the reign of Shahjahan . Asim (1924) narrates the condition of Bengal during the reign of Farrukhsiyar . His last novel, Lutf-Ulla ,

3861-604: Is 3028, which has to be added to Bangladesh area code +880 when making overseas calls, and the subscriber numbers consist of four digits locally. Sitakunda is a major site for pilgrimage in Bangladesh, as it features 280 mosques (including the Shah Mosque) 8 mazars (including Baro Awlias Mazar, Kalu Shah Mazar, Fakir Hat Mazar, Shahjahani Shah Mazar), 49 Hindu temples (including Labanakhya Mandir, Chandranath Mandir, Shambunath Mandir), 3 ashrams (including Sitakunda Shankar Math), and 3 Buddhist temples. The Hammadyar Mosque, located at

4004-494: Is Bangladesh's national march, written by The National Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali in 1928. It was adopted as the national marching song by the Bangladeshi government in 1972. Additionally, the first two verses of Vande Mataram , a patriotic song written in Bengali by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee , was adopted as the "national song" of India in both the colonial period and later in 1950 in independent India. Furthermore, it

4147-468: Is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting nine vowels and two diphthongs , and thirty-nine graphemes representing consonants and other modifiers. There are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. The letters run from left to right and spaces are used to separate orthographic words . Bengali script has a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the graphemes that links them together called মাত্রা matra . Since

4290-1088: Is a collection of lectures delivered by him in 1924. His standard two-volume Bangalar Itihas ( History of Bengal ), in Bengali (1914 and 1917), was one of the first attempts at writing a scientific history of Bengal. He also wrote two volumes on the history of Orissa, titled History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period (1930 and 1931). His other significant non-fiction works include, Prachin Mudra (1915), The Palas of Bengal (1915), The Temple of Siva at Bhumara (1924), The Paleography of Hati Gumpha and Nanaghat Inscriptions (1924), Bas Reliefs of Badami (1928) and The Haihayas of Tripuri and their Monuments (1931). Having published three novels, Pakshantar (1924), Byatikram (1924) and Anukram (1931), his other literary works in Bengali language were historical fictions. The setting of his Pashaner Katha (1914)

4433-562: Is also spoken by the Bengali diasporas ( Bangladeshi diaspora and Indian Bengalis) across Europe, North America, the Middle East and other regions. Bengali was accorded the status of a classical language by the government of India on 3 October 2024. It is the second most spoken and fourth fastest growing language in India , following Hindi in the first place, Kashmiri in the second place, and Meitei ( Manipuri ), along with Gujarati , in

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4576-618: Is also susceptible to natural hazards such as earthquakes, cyclones , and storm surges . It lies on one of the most active seismic faults in Bangladesh, the Sitakunda–Teknaf fault. Sitakunda is renowned for its numerous Islamic , Hindu and Buddhist shrines. It has 280 mosques, 8 mazars , 49 Hindu temples, 4 ashrams , and 3 Buddhist temples. Among its notable religious sites are the Chandranath Temple (a Shakti Peetha or holy pilgrimage site), Vidarshanaram Vihara (founded by

4719-400: Is an abugida , a script with letters for consonants, with diacritics for vowels, and in which an inherent vowel (অ ô ) is assumed for consonants if no vowel is marked. The Bengali alphabet is used throughout Bangladesh and eastern India (Assam, West Bengal, Tripura). The Bengali alphabet is believed to have evolved from a modified Brahmic script around 1000 CE (or 10th–11th century). It

4862-531: Is an elongated, asymmetrical, box-type double plunging anticline . Both the gently dipping eastern and steeper western flanks of the anticline are truncated abruptly by the alluvial plain of the Feni River. For a lack of infrastructure in Bangladesh, this anticline is one of the few regularly surveyed structures in the country. The syncline from Sitakunda separates the eastern end of the Feni Structure located in

5005-668: Is believed by many that the national anthem of Sri Lanka ( Sri Lanka Matha ) was inspired by a Bengali poem written by Rabindranath Tagore , while some even believe the anthem was originally written in Bengali and then translated into Sinhala . After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the Sierra Leone Civil War under the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone ,

5148-510: Is capable of holding 50 to 60 people. Syedpur Union has eleven, Muradpur eight, Baraiyadhala seven, and Kumira five. Sitakunda municipality, Barabkunda, Bhatiary and Bansbaria have four shelters each. Salimpur has three and Sonaichhari Union has two shelters. The Chittagong Coastal Forest Department developed the river bars ( char in Bengali) on the bank of the Sonaichhari channel adjacent to

5291-564: Is carried out along the eastern side of the Dhaka–Chittagong road. Operators of local brick kilns are engaged in illegal hill cutting, a practice that was responsible along with heavy rainfall for the 2007 Chittagong mudslide . The rural poor are supported by Grameen Bank and NGOs such as CARE , BRAC and ASA . The Dhaka–Chittagong Highway runs through Sitakunda, connecting the two largest cities in Bangladesh. A workshop conducted by Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimated that improving

5434-699: Is considered a separate language, although it shares similarities to Northern Bengali dialects. During the standardisation of Bengali in the 19th century and early 20th century, the cultural centre of Bengal was in Kolkata , a city founded by the British. What is accepted as the standard form today in both West Bengal and Bangladesh is based on the West-Central dialect of Nadia and Kushtia District . There are cases where speakers of Standard Bengali in West Bengal will use

5577-625: Is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements; the re-rolling mills alone substitute for import of about 1,200,000 metric tons (1,181,048 long tons) of billets and other raw materials. There are 70 companies registered as ship breakers in Chittagong, employing 2,000 regular and 25,000 semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Organized under the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association, (BSBA), these include companies within large local conglomerates that sought ISO certificates . The industry has come under threat, both from

5720-412: Is divided into 69 mauzas and 88 villages. Along with neighboring towns such as Hathazari , Fateyabad , Patiya and Boalkhali , Sitakunda Town was developed as a satellite town to relieve the increasing population pressure on Chittagong, with Bhatiari and Sadar unions selected as zones for industrialization, like South Halishahar and Kalurghat . In the 2009 Upazila elections, Abdullah Al Baker Bhuiyan

5863-404: Is known as Apabhraṃśa , by the end of the first millennium. The Bengali language evolved as a distinct language over the course of time. Though some archaeologists claim that some 10th-century texts were in Bengali, it is not certain whether they represent a differentiated language or whether they represent a stage when Eastern Indo-Aryan languages were differentiating. The local Apabhraṃśa of

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6006-601: Is largely driven by the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway and the railway. Though Sitakunda is predominantly an agricultural area, it also has the largest ship breaking industry in the world. The industry has been accused of neglecting workers' rights , especially concerning work safety practices and child labor . It has also been accused of harming the environment, particularly by causing soil contamination . Sitakunda's ecosystems are further threatened by deforestation, over-fishing, and groundwater contamination. The upazila

6149-465: Is low in the industrial facilities. The main occupations of the local people by industry are service (28.76%), commerce (21.53%), and agriculture (24.12%). Out of 12,140.83 hectares (30,000.64 acres) of cultivable land 25.46% yield a single crop, 57.95% yield double and 16.59% a treble crop annually. Bean, melon, rubber and betel leaf are the main agricultural exports. Fishing has traditionally been an industry restricted to low caste Hindus belonging to

6292-591: Is noted for its participation in soccer. There are 151 clubs, a public library and two cinema halls in the upazila. Bengali language Bengali , also known by its endonym Bangla ( বাংলা , Bāṅlā , [ˈbaŋla] ), is a classical Indo-Aryan language from the Indo-European language family native to the Bengal region of South Asia. With over 237 million native speakers and another 41 million as second language speakers as of 2024, Bengali

6435-572: Is one of the oldest sites of human habitation in Bangladesh. During much of its history, it was ruled alternatively by various Buddhist rulers of Myanmar in the east and Muslims rulers of Bengal in the west. For a brief period in the 8th century, it was ruled by the Buddhist Pala Empire of India . The eastern rulers originated from the Kingdom of Arakan , the Mrauk U dynasty, Arakanese pirates and

6578-499: Is set in Delhi at the time of the invasion by Nadir Shah . Another work, Hemkana (uncompleted), was published in Prabasi (magazine) from 1911 to 1912. A number of his novels were translated into other Indian languages. In 2022, in commemoration of the 137th birth anniversary of the illustrious Rakhaldas Banerji, and to celebrate the centenary year of the discovery of Harappan Civilization,

6721-477: Is set out below in the International Phonetic Alphabet (upper grapheme in each box) and romanisation (lower grapheme). Bengali is known for its wide variety of diphthongs , combinations of vowels occurring within the same syllable . Two of these, /oi̯/ and /ou̯/ , are the only ones with representation in script, as ঐ and ঔ respectively. /e̯ i̯ o̯ u̯/ may all form the glide part of

6864-405: Is the fifth most spoken native language and the seventh most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. It is the fifth most spoken Indo-European language . Bengali is the official , national , and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh , with 98% of Bangladeshis using Bengali as their first language. It is the second-most widely spoken language in India . It

7007-572: Is the Upazila Nirbahi Officer, the chief executive of the upazila. The upazila is served by a court presided over by a first-class magistrate . The Power Development Board is responsible for supplying electricity to the upazila, but due to power outages the industries in the area are strictly constrained. Anwarul Kabir Talukder, the State Minister for Power, lost his job on 29 September 2006 after hundreds of demonstrators in Sitakunda blocked

7150-672: Is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura and the Barak Valley region of the state of Assam . It is also the second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. It is the most widely spoken language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal , and is spoken by significant populations in other states including Bihar , Arunachal Pradesh , Delhi , Chhattisgarh , Meghalaya , Mizoram , Nagaland , Odisha and Uttarakhand . Bengali

7293-468: Is very close to the tectonic interface of the Indian and Burmese plates , as well as the active Andaman–Nicobar fault system, and is often capable of generating tsunamis . Cyclone preparedness measures are inadequate for the 200,000 residents of Sitakunda who were estimated to be living in high risk areas after the 1991 cyclone. For every 5,000 people, Sitakunda has only one cyclone shelter, each of which

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7436-530: The 2011 Census of Bangladesh , Sitakunda upazila had 77,279 households and a population of 387,832. 78,302 (20.19%) were under 10 years of age. Sitakunda had an average literacy rate of 59.20%, compared to the national average of 51.8%, and a sex ratio of 919 females per 1000 males. 45,147 (11.64%) of the population lived in urban areas. According to the census of 2001, Sitakunda had a population of 298,528 distributed to 55,837 units of households (average household size 5.3), including 163,561 men and 134,967 women, or

7579-500: The Aesop's Fables in Bengali was printed using Roman letters based on English phonology by the Scottish linguist John Gilchrist . Consecutive attempts to establish a Roman Bengali have continued across every century since these times, and have been supported by the likes of Suniti Kumar Chatterji , Muhammad Qudrat-i-Khuda , and Muhammad Enamul Haq . The Digital Revolution has also played

7722-606: The Arabic , Persian , and Turkic languages . The arrival of merchants and traders from the Middle East and Turkestan into the Buddhist -ruling Pala Empire , from as early as the 7th century, gave birth to Islamic influence in the region. In the 13th century, subsequent Arab Muslim and Turco-Persian expeditions to Bengal heavily influenced the local vernacular by settling among the native population. Bengali absorbed Arabic and Persian influences in its vocabulary and dialect, including

7865-774: The Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation , and one has been sold to a private sector company. To protest against privatization, workers of Hafiz Jute Mill, Gul Ahmed Jute Mill, MM Jute Mill and RR Jute Mill blocked the Dhaka–Chittagong Highway for seven hours in September 2007. As early as 1953, Sitakunda was described as the location for one of only five poultry farms in East Pakistan , along with Tejgaon (Dhaka), Narayanganj (Dhaka), Jamalpur ( Bogra ), and Sylhet . Some mining for sand from agricultural lands

8008-583: The British colonial government (British Raj) replaced the governance of the East India Company . When the British withdrew in 1947, after creating the independent states of India and Pakistan, Sitakunda became a part of East Pakistan . The potential for a ship breaking industry first appeared in 1964 when Chittagong Steel House started scrapping MD Alpince , a 20,000 metric tons (19,684 long tons) Greek ship that had been accidentally beached near Fouzdarhat by

8151-468: The Constitution of Bangladesh states Bengali to be the sole official language of Bangladesh. The Bengali Language Implementation Act, 1987 , made it mandatory to use Bengali in all records and correspondences, laws, proceedings of court and other legal actions in all courts, government or semi-government offices, and autonomous institutions in Bangladesh. It is also the de facto national language of

8294-536: The Dashanami Sampradaya . An International Vedic Conference was held from 15 to 17 February 2007 at Sitakunda Shrine (Tirtha) Estate in Sitakunda Chandranath Dham, on the occasion of the great Shiva Chaturdarshi (a Hindu festival in worship of Lord Shiva). These temples have been subject to repeated attack and violation by Muslims, and Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Parishad has asked for

8437-749: The Institute of Marine Science of Chittagong University in 2007 revealed that the soil of the locality is polluted by heavy metals including mercury (0.5 to 2.7 ppm), lead (0.5 to 21.8 ppm), chromium (220 ppm), cadmium (0.3 to 2.9 ppm), iron (2.6 to 5.6 ppm), calcium (5.2 to 23.2 ppm) and magnesium (6.5 to 10.57 ppm). Safety standards in the industry are low; between 1995 and 2005, 150 workers were killed and 576 were maimed or injured. The main causes of death were fire or explosion, suffocation and inhaling CO 2 . These old ships also contain hazardous substances like asbestos, lead paint, heavy metals and PCBs . The workers are paid US$ 1.75

8580-564: The Kaithi script had some historical prominence, mainly among Muslim communities. The variant in Sylhet was identical to the Baitali Kaithi script of Hindustani with the exception of Sylhet Nagri possessing matra . Sylhet Nagri was standardised for printing in c.  1869 . Up until the 19th century, numerous variations of the Arabic script had been used across Bengal from Chittagong in

8723-701: The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were influential in the first millennium when Bengal was a part of the Greater Magadhan realm. The local varieties had no official status during the Gupta Empire , and with Bengal increasingly becoming a hub of Sanskrit literature for Hindu priests, the vernacular of Bengal gained a lot of influence from Sanskrit. Magadhi Prakrit was also spoken in modern-day Bihar and Assam , and this vernacular eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi . Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what

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8866-520: The Nadia region . Bengali shows a high degree of diglossia , with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Modern Bengali vocabulary is based on words inherited from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, along with tatsamas and reborrowings from Sanskrit and borrowings from Persian , Arabic , Austroasiatic languages and other languages with which it has historically been in contact. In

9009-792: The Pagan Kingdom . The western rulers came from the Sultanate of Bengal and the Mughal province ( Suba ) of Bangala. European rule of Sitakunda was heralded by Portuguese privateers in 16th and 17th centuries, who ruled together with the pirates; and the British Raj in 18th and 19th centuries, who unified Sitakunda into the rest of the Chittagong District. Diderul Alam is the Current Member of parliament of Sitakunda Economic development in Sitakunda

9152-461: The Twipra Kingdom in the time of king Dhanya Manikya , who once attempted to remove the lingam from the temple to his kingdom. Poets from across the ages – from Jayadeva (circa 1200 AD) to Nabinchandra Sen (1847–1909) – were said to be devoted to the temple. Chandranath is within the jurisdiction of Gobardhan Math, which was founded, according to legends, by Padmacharya, a disciple of Shankaracharya and founder of Vana and Aranya sects of

9295-432: The University of Karachi (established by East Pakistani politicians before Independence of Bangladesh ) also offers regular programs of studies at the Bachelors and at the Masters levels for Bengali Literature. The national anthems of both Bangladesh ( Amar Sonar Bangla ) and India ( Jana Gana Mana ) were written in Bengali by the Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore . Notuner Gaan known as " Chol Chol Chol"

9438-499: The boldface represents primary and secondary stress. Native Bengali words do not allow initial consonant clusters ; the maximum syllabic structure is CVC (i.e., one vowel flanked by a consonant on each side). Many speakers of Bengali restrict their phonology to this pattern, even when using Sanskrit or English borrowings, such as গেরাম geram (CV.CVC) for গ্রাম gram (CCVC) "village" or ইস্কুল iskul (VC.CVC) for স্কুল skul (CCVC) "school". The Bengali-Assamese script

9581-417: The folded flank of the Bengal Foredeep . Local experts consider the Sitakunda–Teknaf fault to be one of the two most active seismic faults in Bangladesh. After the earthquake of 2 April 1762, which caused a permanent submergence of 155.4 square kilometres (60.0 sq mi) of land near Chittagong and the death of 500 people in Dhaka , two volcanoes are said to have opened in the Sitakunda hills. During

9724-557: The phonology of Eastern Bengali is seen through the lack of nasalised vowels and an alveolar articulation of what are categorised as the "cerebral" consonants (as opposed to the postalveolar articulation of western Bengal). Some varieties of Bengali, particularly Sylheti , Chittagonian and Chakma , have contrastive tone ; differences in the pitch of the speaker's voice can distinguish words. Kharia Thar and Mal Paharia are closely related to Western Bengali dialects, but are typically classified as separate languages. Similarly, Hajong

9867-410: The yajna -fire of her father Daksha , as a protest against Shiva's dishonor. The God became furious and started to dance the Tāndava with Sati's body on his shoulders. Knowing that the dance of destruction was about to annihilate the world, Vishnu cut the body of Sati to pieces with Sudarshana Chakram , his celestial weapon, thereby appeasing Shiva. Each of 51 pieces of the body fell to earth, and

10010-457: The 16th century, Portuguese missionaries began a tradition of using the Roman alphabet to transcribe the Bengali language. Though the Portuguese standard did not receive much growth, a few Roman Bengali works relating to Christianity and Bengali grammar were printed as far as Lisbon in 1743. The Portuguese were followed by the English and French respectively, whose works were mostly related to Bengali grammar and transliteration. The first version of

10153-451: The 18,843 tube wells surveyed, 24.7% were found to be contaminated . Visible signs of arsenic poisoning were found in 47 people. National newspapers published in Dhaka including Prothom Alo , Ajker Kagoj , Janakantha and The Daily Ittefaq are available in Sitakunda, as well as regional newspapers published in Chittagong Azadi and Purbakon. It also has its own local newspapers and a journalist community. In 2003, Atahar Siddik Khasru,

10296-588: The 19th and 20th centuries, there were two standard forms of written Bengali: In 1948, the government of Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the sole state language in Pakistan, giving rise to the Bengali language movement . This was a popular ethnolinguistic movement in the former East Bengal (today Bangladesh ), which arose as a result of the strong linguistic consciousness of the Bengalis and their desire to promote and protect spoken and written Bengali's recognition as

10439-576: The 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. The ancestor of Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty . During the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterised by the elision of the word-final অ ô and the spread of compound verbs, which originated from the Sanskrit Schwa . Slowly, the word-final ô disappeared from many words influenced by

10582-451: The Bengali equivalent of a full stop – have been adopted from Western scripts and their usage is similar. Unlike in Western scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) where the letter forms stand on an invisible baseline, the Bengali letter-forms instead hang from a visible horizontal left-to-right headstroke called মাত্রা matra . The presence and absence of this matra can be important. For example,

10725-426: The Bengali script is an abugida, its consonant graphemes usually do not represent phonetic segments , but carry an "inherent" vowel and thus are syllabic in nature. The inherent vowel is usually a back vowel , either [ɔ] as in মত [m ɔ t] "opinion" or [o] , as in মন [m o n] "mind", with variants like the more open [ɒ] . To emphatically represent a consonant sound without any inherent vowel attached to it,

10868-435: The Dhaka–Chittagong highway in protest at the lack of electricity; violence also erupted elsewhere in Bangladesh. In case of fire, the services are brought in from the neighboring city of Chittagong. A proposed Kumira–Sitakunda Hill Water Reservoir Project to supply safe drinking water is to be undertaken by the government. The ship breaking industry in Sitakunda has surpassed similar industries in India and Pakistan to become

11011-553: The Islamic militant group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh since the early 2000s. The legends of the area state the sage Bhargava created a pond ( kunda ) for Sita to bathe in when her husband Lord Ramchandra visited during his exile in the forests. Sitakunda derived its name from this incident. Sitakunda has been occupied by humans since the Neolithic era; tools associated with the prehistoric Assam group have been found throughout

11154-460: The Sitakunda coast into a kilometer-wide coastal mangrove plantation during 1989–90, to reduce the impact of cyclones. Although the site was initially unstable, rapid sediment accretion stabilised the soil, providing the coast with some protection. The cyclone of 1990 smashed about 25% of a 2-kilometre (1 mi) sea-wall built using two-ton steel-reinforced concrete blocks, some of which were carried up to 100 metres (328 ft) inland. In contrast,

11297-406: The area, leading to seasonal food insecurity (February to April). According to a 2001 survey, 4,000 people in Sitakunda were engaged in wild shrimp fry collection, harvesting an average of five-and-a-half million fries a year. Sitakunda has a cement factory, 12 jute mills, 6 textile mills, 10 re-rolling mills, and 79 functional and defunct shipyards. Two of the operational jute mills are run by

11440-472: The area. In 1886, shouldered celts manufactured from petrified wood were discovered, as reported by Indian archaeologist Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay in his book Banglar Itihas , or History of Bengal , (volume I, 1914). In 1917, British mineralogist Dr. J. Coggin Brown uncovered more prehistoric celts. Large quantities of pebbles have also been found, but archaeologists have not determined whether they were used in

11583-536: The basis of modern standard colloquial Bengali. In the dialects prevalent in much of eastern and south-eastern Bangladesh ( Barisal , Chittagong , Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions of Bangladesh), many of the stops and affricates heard in West Bengal and western Bangladesh are pronounced as fricatives . Western alveolo-palatal affricates চ [ tɕɔ ] , ছ [ tɕʰɔ ] , জ [ dʑɔ ] correspond to eastern চ [tsɔ] , ছ [tsʰɔ~sɔ] , জ [dzɔ~zɔ] . The influence of Tibeto-Burman languages on

11726-418: The cable now comes ashore at Cox's Bazar . The cable has frequently been severed by miscreants, often in the Sitakunda area, since its installation on 21 May 2006. Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) has brought internet services to the upazila by establishing Rural Knowledge Centres (RKC). BTTB and RanksTel run telephone services in the upazila. The telephone area code for Sitakunda

11869-525: The central government in Kolkata . In 1910, Indian Petroleum Prospecting Company drilled here for hydrocarbon exploration, the first such activity in East Bengal . In 1914, the first onshore wildcat well in Bangladesh was drilled at Sitakunda anticline to a depth of 762 metres (2,500 ft). By 1914, however, all four of the wells drilled had proven to be failures. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 ,

12012-771: The company's defeat of the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Rapid growth in the Bengali population since then resulted in an exodus of non-Bengali people from Sitakunda and its vicinity to the Chittagong Hill Tracts . During the Ardhodaya Yog movement, a part of the Swadeshi Indian independence movement , the governance of Sitakunda was briefly in the hands of Indian nationalists when, in February 1908, they took over

12155-469: The consonant which comes first is put on top of or to the left of the one that immediately follows. In these ligatures, the shapes of the constituent consonant signs are often contracted and sometimes even distorted beyond recognition. In the Bengali writing system, there are nearly 285 such ligatures denoting consonant clusters. Although there exist a few visual formulas to construct some of these ligatures, many of them have to be learned by rote. Recently, in

12298-617: The construction of prehistoric tools. During the 6th and 7th centuries CE , the Chittagong region was ruled by the Kingdom of Arakan . In the next century, it was briefly ruled by Dharmapala (reign: 770–810) of the Pala Empire . The area was conquered in 1340 by Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (reign: 1338–1349) of Sonargaon , who founded the first dynasty of the Sultanate of Bengal. When Sultan Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah (reign: 1533–1538) of

12441-455: The country. In India, Bengali is one of the 23 official languages . It is the official language of the Indian states of West Bengal , Tripura and in Barak Valley of Assam . Bengali has been a second official language of the Indian state of Jharkhand since September 2011. In Pakistan , Bengali is a recognised secondary language in the city of Karachi mainly spoken by stranded Bengalis of Pakistan . The Department of Bengali in

12584-834: The daughter of Narendranath Mukhopadhyay. He passed his F.A. examination in 1903 and graduated from the Presidency College with Honours in History in 1907. He obtained his M.A. in history from the Calcutta University in 1911. Bandyopadhyay joined the Indian Museum in Calcutta as an Assistant to the Archaeological Section in 1910. He joined the Archaeological Survey of India as Assistant Superintendent in 1911 and

12727-616: The dependence of local people on park resources created conflicts between local communities and the park authority" and "prohibition on the extraction of forest products from the park... make the livelihoods of surrounding villagers vulnerable". The educational institutions of the upazila include Faujdarhat Cadet College (founded in 1958), 4 regular colleges (including Sitakunda Degree College founded in 1968), 24 high schools (including Sitakund Government Model High School founded in 1913 and Madam Bibir Hat Shahjania High School founded in 1905), 10 madrasas , and 76 junior and primary schools. All

12870-535: The development of Dobhashi . Bengali acquired prominence, over Persian, in the court of the Sultans of Bengal with the ascent of Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah . Subsequent Muslim rulers actively promoted the literary development of Bengali, allowing it to become the most spoken vernacular language in the Sultanate. Bengali adopted many words from Arabic and Persian , which was a manifestation of Islamic culture on

13013-642: The difficulties and hardships which they had to face in the three first seasons at Mohenjo-daro." Bandyopadhyay was born on 12 April 1885 in Berhampore of Murshidabad District , in present-day Indian state of West Bengal , to Matilal and Kalimati. He passed his entrance examination from the Krishnath College School in Berhampore in 1900. He lived in Bangaon . Soon, he married Kanchanmala (1891–1931),

13156-418: The district. By 1904, the track system was extended to Chandpur to connect river boat traffic between Goalanda and Kolkata . Approximately 37 kilometres (23 mi) of railroads stop at six rail stations. Currently, there is no express train service between Sitakunda and Chittagong, though intercity expresses (Sylhet–Chittagong, Chandpur–Chittagong, and Dhaka–Chittagong) stop at Sitakunda station and carry

13299-617: The east to Meherpur in the west. The 14th-century court scholar of Bengal, Nur Qutb Alam , composed Bengali poetry using the Persian alphabet . After the Partition of India in the 20th century, the Pakistani government attempted to institute the Perso-Arabic script as the standard for Bengali in East Pakistan ; this was met with resistance and contributed to the Bengali language movement. In

13442-411: The east, and the Sandwip Channel in the Bay of Bengal to the west. The Sitakunda range is a 32-kilometre (20 mi) long ridge in the center of the upazila, which reaches an altitude of 352 metres (1,155 ft) above sea level at Chandranath or Sitakunda peak, the highest peak in Chittagong District. Part of Sitakunda is covered by the low hill ranges, while the rest is in the Bengal flood plain . To

13585-549: The eastern subcontinent, Purbi Apabhraṃśa or Abahatta (lit. 'meaningless sounds'), eventually evolved into regional dialects, which in turn formed three groups, the Bengali–Assamese languages , the Bihari languages , and the Odia language . The language was not static: different varieties coexisted and authors often wrote in multiple dialects in this period. For example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around

13728-500: The emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the language movement. Although Sanskrit has been spoken by Hindu Brahmins in Bengal since the 3rd century BC, the local Buddhist population spoke varieties of the Prakrit . These varieties are generally referred to as "eastern Magadhi Prakrit ", as coined by linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji , as

13871-466: The final ন in মন [m o n] or the medial ম in গামলা [ɡamla] ). A consonant sound followed by some vowel sound other than the inherent [ɔ] is orthographically realised by using a variety of vowel allographs above, below, before, after, or around the consonant sign, thus forming the ubiquitous consonant-vowel typographic ligatures . These allographs, called কার kar , are diacritical vowel forms and cannot stand on their own. For example,

14014-422: The fisher class, although since the last decades of the 20th century an increasing number of Muslims have joined the sector. Due to the introduction of engine-powered boats and gill nets , there was a rise in fish catches between the 1970s and 1990s, especially in the major fishing season (mid-July to mid-November). Over-fishing, however, has depleted the fish population and some fish species are facing extinction in

14157-530: The forces fighting for the independence of Bangladesh. The ship breaking industry began in earnest in 1974 when Karnafully Metal Works started scrapping Al Abbas , a Pakistani ship damaged in 1971, and flourished in the 1980s. As of 2007, Sitakunda had overtaken the ship breaking industries of India and Pakistan to become the largest in the world. In the early 2000s, Islamic militant organization Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leader Siddikul Islam (also known as Bangla Bhai ) ran militant training centers in

14300-600: The garden, 403 hectares (996 acres), under the Bariadhala Range of Chittagong Forest Division, are rich with natural Gymnosperm tree species including Podocarpus neriifolius and species of Gnetum and Cycas . The park is reported to be able to receive 25,000 visitors in a single weekend. With the botanical garden included, the number of visitors can reach up to 50,000. According to the International Journal of Biodiversity Science and Management , however, "ignoring

14443-714: The government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah declared Bengali as an honorary official language in December 2002. In 2009, elected representatives in both Bangladesh and West Bengal called for Bengali to be made an official language of the United Nations . Regional varieties in spoken Bengali constitute a dialect continuum . Linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji grouped the dialects of Bengali language into four large clusters: Rarhi , Vangiya , Kamrupi and Varendri ; but many alternative grouping schemes have also been proposed. The south-western dialects ( Rarhi or Nadia dialect) form

14586-584: The government, provides electricity to fish farms. The geological structure of Sitakunda, 70 kilometres (43 mi) long and 10 kilometres (6 mi) wide, is one of the westernmost structures of Chittagong and Chittagong Hill Tracts , delimited by the Feni River in the north, the Karnaphuli River in the south, the Halda River in the east and the Sandwip Channel in the west. The Sitakunda Range acts as

14729-499: The graph মি [mi] represents the consonant [m] followed by the vowel [i] , where [i] is represented as the diacritical allograph ি (called ই-কার i-kar ) and is placed before the default consonant sign. Similarly, the graphs মা [ma] , মী [mi] , মু [mu] , মূ [mu] , মৃ [mri] , মে [me~mɛ] , মৈ [moj] , মো [mo] and মৌ [mow] represent the same consonant ম combined with seven other vowels and two diphthongs. In these consonant-vowel ligatures,

14872-412: The graphical form. However, since this change is not as widespread and is not being followed as uniformly in the rest of the Bengali printed literature, today's Bengali-learning children will possibly have to learn to recognise both the new "transparent" and the old "opaque" forms, which ultimately amounts to an increase in learning burden. Bengali punctuation marks, apart from the downstroke । daṛi –

15015-527: The highway would increase Bangladesh's GDP by 1% and its foreign trade by 20%. This roadlink between the two cities existed in the pre-railway days and has been identified as a part of the medieval southern Silk Road . In 2006, ADB and the World Bank announced a plan to help Bangladesh build a second highway between Dhaka and Chittagong, which would be a part of the Asian Highway Network . Historically,

15158-533: The hills: Sahasradhara (thousand streams) and Suptadhara (hidden stream). Both have been identified as sites requiring special attention for protection and preservation by the National Heritage Foundation of Bangladesh . An area prone to cyclones and storm surges, Sitakunda was affected by cyclones in 1960, 1963, 1970, 1988, 1991, 1994 and 1997; the cyclones of 29 May 1963, 12 November 1970, 29 April 1991 made landfall . The intra-deltaic coastline

15301-538: The introduction of Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization , London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931, Sir John Marshall wrote, "Three other scholars whose names I cannot pass over in silence, are the late Mr. R. D. Banerji, to whom belongs the credit of having discovered, if not Mohenjo-daro itself, at any rate its high antiquity, and his immediate successors in the task of excavation, Messrs. M.S. Vats and K.N. Dikshit . ... no one probably except myself can fully appreciate

15444-483: The language as: While most writing is in Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), spoken dialects exhibit a greater variety. People in southeastern West Bengal, including Kolkata, speak in SCB. Other dialects, with minor variations from Standard Colloquial, are used in other parts of West Bengal and western Bangladesh, such as the Midnapore dialect, characterised by some unique words and constructions. However,

15587-535: The language. Major texts of Middle Bengali (1400–1800) include Yusuf-Zulekha by Shah Muhammad Sagir and Srikrishna Kirtana by the Chandidas poets. Court support for Bengali culture and language waned when the Mughal Empire conquered Bengal in the late 16th and early 17th century. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the west-central dialect spoken in

15730-476: The largest in the world. As of August 2007, over 1,500,000 metric tons (1,476,310 long tons) of iron had been produced from the scrapping of about 20 ships in the 19 functional ship yards scattered over 8 square kilometres (3 sq mi) along the coast of Sitakunda 8–10 kilometres (5–6 mi) from Chittagong , near Fouzderhat. Local re-rolling mills, as well as similar mills, process the scrap iron. Bangladesh, with no local metal ore mining industry of its own,

15873-618: The last dynasty of the Sultanate of Bengal was defeated in 1538 by Sher Shah Suri of the Sur Dynasty , the Arakanese captured the region again. Batsauphyu (reign: 1459–1482) of the Mrauk U dynasty took advantage of the weakness of Sultan Barbak Shah of Bengal to lead the invasion. In this period, Keyakchu (or Chandrajyoti ), a prince of Arakan, established a monastery in Sitakunda. Between 1538 and 1666, Portuguese privateers (known as Firinghis or Harmads ) made inroads into Chittagong and ruled

16016-886: The latter two also being common in the hills of the region. A number of fish species have become endangered in the area due to overfishing . They include Bhoal ( Raiamas bola ), Lakkhya ( Eleutheronema tetradactylum ), Chapila ( Gudusia chapra ), Datina ( Acanthopagrus latus ), Rupchanda ( Pampus argenteus ), Pungash ( Pangasius pangasius ), Chhuri ( Trichiurus lepturus ), Ilsha Chandana ( Tenualosa toli ), Hilsha ( Tenualosa ilisha ), Faishya ( Anchoviella commersonii ), Maittya ( Scomberomorus commerson ), Gnhora ( Labeo gonius ), Kata ( Nemapteryx nenga ), Chewa ( Taenioides cirratus ), Sundari bele ( Glossogobius giuris ), Bnata ( Liza parsia ), Koral ( Etroplus suratensis ) and Kawoon ( Anabas testudineus ), as well as crustaceans like tiger shrimps. The first eco-park in Bangladesh, Sitakunda Botanical Garden and Eco Park ,

16159-428: The letter ত tô and the numeral ৩ "3" are distinguishable only by the presence or absence of the matra , as is the case between the consonant cluster ত্র trô and the independent vowel এ e , also the letter হ hô and Bengali Ôbogroho ঽ (~ô) and letter ও o and consonant cluster ত্ত ttô . The letter-forms also employ the concepts of letter-width and letter-height (the vertical space between

16302-516: The major health threats. The percentage of disabled in Sitakunda is reported to be the highest in Bangladesh, at 17% compared to the national average of 13%. Banshbaria Union has been declared as 100% sanitized, as all households in the union adopted sanitary latrines, while the upazila has only 16% sanitation coverage. A survey published in 2006 by the Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Supply Project found that of

16445-585: The neighbouring states of Odisha , Bihar , and Jharkhand , and sizeable minorities of Bengali speakers reside in Indian cities outside Bengal, including Delhi , Mumbai , Thane , Varanasi , and Vrindavan . There are also significant Bengali-speaking communities in the Middle East , the United States , Singapore , Malaysia , Australia , Canada , the United Kingdom , and Italy . The 3rd article of

16588-489: The north, Rajbari Tila at 274 metres (899 ft) and Sajidhala at 244 metres (801 ft) are the highest peaks in this range, which drops abruptly to a height of less than 92 metres (302 ft) in the vicinity of Chittagong City to the south. About 5 kilometres (3 mi) north of Sitakunda Town is the Labanakhya saltwater hot spring , which has been proposed as a source of geothermal energy . There are two waterfalls in

16731-454: The open, along the banks of rivers and swamps with common tall grasses like Kans ( Saccharum spontaneum ), Shon ( Imperata cylindrica and I. arundincca ) and Bena ( Vetiveria zizanoides ). Several species of Bamboo are cultivated that are common in Bangladesh including Bambusa balcooa (which is also common in Assam ), B. vulgaris , B. longispiculata , B. tulda and B. nutans ;

16874-514: The parliament of Bangladesh and the legislative assembly of West Bengal proposed that Bengali be made an official UN language. As of January 2023, no further action has been yet taken on this matter. However, in 2022, the UN did adopt Bangla as an unofficial language, after a resolution tabled by India. In 2024, the government of India conferred Bengali with the status of classical language . Approximate distribution of native Bengali speakers (assuming

17017-572: The pilgrims to be protected. While returning to Kolkata after completing a floral survey, Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) carried out the first survey of Sitakunda's local flora, as recorded in his Himalayan Journals , in January 1851 (published by the Calcutta Trigonometrical Survey Office and Minerva Library of Famous Books; Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co., 1891). The forests of the region are known to be evergreen type with

17160-551: The place where each piece fell became a holy center of pilgrimage or Shakti Peetha . The legend goes that Sati's right arm fell near a now-extinct hot spring at the Chandranth peak in Sitakunda. The site is marked by the temple of Sambhunath just below the Chandranath temple on top of the peak, and it is a major tirtha for Hindus in Bangladesh. According to Rajmala , the temple of Chandranath received considerable endowments from

17303-505: The population density of Sitakunda was 692 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,792/sq mi). Apart from the Bengali majority, there are a number of small communities of ethnic minorities in the area. Many of the resident Rakhine people are believed to have settled here during the Arakanese rule of Chittagong (1459–1666), though the event is not historically traceable. The Rakhine population in Khagrachari District migrated from

17446-442: The president of the local Press Club, went missing on 30 April and was rescued on 21 May. He was abducted and tortured by unidentified men allegedly on charges of protesting against the harassment of Mahmudul Haq, editor of local magazine Upanagar . On 6 May, about 30 local journalists working for national and local press took to the streets in protest. The other weekly newspaper is Chaloman Sitakunda . Television channels available in

17589-524: The rail transportation system drove developments in Chittagong and the surrounding areas, including Sitakunda. The rail tracks were established as part of the Bengal Assam Railway in 1898, originally running from Chittagong to Badarpur , with branches to Silchar and Laksam . In September 1878, Sitakunda was included in the East Bengal Circle of Railway Mail Service (RMS) along with rest of

17732-467: The region in alliance with Arakanese pirates. During those 128 years, the eastern coast of Bengal became a home to pirates of Portuguese and Arakanese origins. For a brief period in 1550, it was taken over by Pagan invaders. In 1666, Mughal commander Bujurg Umed Khan conquered the area. Along with the rest of Bengal , Sitakunda came under the rule of the British East India Company after

17875-473: The scholar Prajnalok Mahasthavir ), and the Hammadyar Mosque (founded by Sultan Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah ). The attraction of Sitakunda as a tourist destination is elevated by these pilgrimage sites along with the hill range and the eco-park. Despite its diverse population, the area has gone through episodes of communal strife , including attacks on places of worship. There have been reports of activity by

18018-765: The secondary schools and regular colleges are under the Chittagong Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education split from the Comilla Board in May 1995. Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah (1885–1969), an eminent Bangladeshi linguist , served as the headmaster of the Government High School from 1914 to 1915. On 24 July 1996, members of Bangladesh Chhatra League and Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) in Sitakunda Degree College fought with guns and firecrackers over

18161-666: The site of Mohenjo-daro and returned there in the 1922-23 season. He was the first person to propose the remote antiquity of the site—which he did in a letter to Marshall in 1923—and in effect of the Harappan culture . After leaving the ASI, he held the Manindra Chandra Nandy professorship of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the Banaras Hindu University from 1928 until his premature death in 1930. In 1931, in

18304-427: The so-called "inherent" vowel [ɔ] is first expunged from the consonant before adding the vowel, but this intermediate expulsion of the inherent vowel is not indicated in any visual manner on the basic consonant sign ম [mɔ] . The vowel graphemes in Bengali can take two forms: the independent form found in the basic inventory of the script and the dependent, abridged, allograph form (as discussed above). To represent

18447-536: The superposed chôndrôbindu (ঁ) , denoting a suprasegmental for nasalisation of vowels (as in চাঁদ [tʃãd] "moon"), the postposed ônusbar (ং) indicating the velar nasal [ŋ] (as in বাংলা [baŋla] "Bengali") and the postposed bisôrgô (ঃ) indicating the voiceless glottal fricative [h] (as in উঃ! [uh] "ouch!") or the gemination of the following consonant (as in দুঃখ [dukʰːɔ] "sorrow"). The Bengali consonant clusters ( যুক্তব্যঞ্জন juktôbênjôn ) are usually realised as ligatures, where

18590-551: The surrounding area and built up their permanent abode at Ramgarh in the 19th century. Other ethnic groups include the recently migrated Tripuri people . In the District of Chittagong that includes Sitakunda, the population ratio by religion in 2001 was Muslim 83.92%, Hindu 13.76%, Buddhist 2.01% and Christian 0.12%, with 0.19% following other religions. In 1981, it was Muslim 82.79%, Hindu 14.6%, Buddhist 2.23% and Christian 0.21%, with 0.19% following other religions. Chittagonian ,

18733-582: The third place, according to the 2011 census of India . Bengali has developed over more than 1,400 years. Bengali literature , with its millennium-old literary history, was extensively developed during the Bengali Renaissance and is one of the most prolific and diverse literary traditions in Asia. The Bengali language movement from 1948 to 1956 demanding that Bengali be an official language of Pakistan fostered Bengali nationalism in East Bengal leading to

18876-429: The upazila at which participants learned to make bombs and handle firearms. One of his followers, Mahfuzul Huq, was captured on 21 February 2006. Sitakunda Upazila occupies an area of 483.97 square kilometres (186.86 sq mi), which includes 61.61 square kilometres (23.79 sq mi) of forest. It is bordered by Mirsharai to the north, Pahartali to the south, Fatickchhari , Hathazari and Panchlaish to

19019-462: The upazila include satellite television channels like Channel i , ATN Bangla , Channel One , NTV , as well as terrestrial television channel Bangladesh Television . The festivals of Shiva Chaturdashi in middle of the month of Falgun (end of February) and Chaitra Sankranti at end of the month of Chaitra (mid April) are observed with much fanfare, featuring the largest Hindu fair of the district. The Sitakunda Upazila Krira Sangstha (Sports Club)

19162-740: The village of Masjidda on the banks of a tank known as the Hammadyar Dighi, was built during the reign of Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah, the last Husain Shahi sultan of Bengal, as recorded by the inscription above the central entrance. The Sudarshan Vihara at village Mayani here, as well as the Vidarshanaram Vihara at village Mayani in Patiya were both established in 1922 by Prajnalok Mahasthavir (1879–1971), an eminent Bangladeshi Buddhist preacher. According to legend, Shiva 's wife Sati immolated herself in

19305-484: The visible matra and an invisible baseline). There is yet to be a uniform standard collating sequence (sorting order of graphemes to be used in dictionaries, indices, computer sorting programs, etc.) of Bengali graphemes. Experts in both Bangladesh and India are currently working towards a common solution for this problem. Throughout history, there have been instances of the Bengali language being written in different scripts, though these employments were never popular on

19448-435: The vocabulary may differ according to the speaker's religion: Muslims are more likely to use words of Persian and Arabic origin, along with more words naturally derived from Sanskrit ( tadbhava ), whereas Hindus are more likely to use tatsama (words directly borrowed from Sanskrit). For example: The phonemic inventory of standard Bengali consists of 29 consonants and 7 vowels, as well as 7 nasalised vowels . The inventory

19591-461: Was Eastern Indian Medieval School of Sculpture, published posthumously in 1933. Bandyopadhyay is known for unearthing pre-Buddhist artifacts at the ruins at Mohenjo-Daro and for noting similarities between the site at Mohenjo-Daro and Harrappa. Those discoveries led to excavations at the two sites that established the existence of the then-unknown Bronze Age Indus Valley civilisation . His interpretations of this civilisation were published in

19734-489: Was 20.5% and for women 59.2%. 70,315 people of the Upazila between the ages of 5 and 24 years attend schools, an overall increase of 35.6% between 1991 and 2001, which for men was 28.1% and for women 45.4%. The highest school attendance rate is observed in age group 10–14 years. The health service centers in the upazila include a health complex, an infectious diseases hospital, a railway TB hospital , 11 family planning centres and

19877-595: Was badly affected by mudslides caused by heavy rainfall combined with the recent practice of hill-cutting. The mean annual wind speed recorded in Sitakunda between 1991 and 2001 was 1.8 knots (2 mph), as measured by the wind monitoring station built as part of a wind energy exploration project jointly run by the Local Government Engineering Department and the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies . A small 300-watt wind turbine, built by

20020-565: Was elected the Upazila Chairman, while Advocate MN Mustafa Nur and Nazmun Nahar were elected vice chairmen. Sitakunda Upazila makes the 281st electoral district in Bangladesh, identified as Chittagong-4 . In the 2024 general election , SM Al Mamun of Bangladesh Awami League (AL) was elected as the member of parliament , he won easily because there was not any strong opponents. Previously Didarul Alam of Awami League Party served as member of parliament from 2014 to 2024. M Akteruzzaman

20163-518: Was established in 2001 along with a botanical garden , under a five-year (2000–2004) development project at a cost of Tk 35.7 million on 808 hectares (1,997 acres) of the Chandranath Hills in Sitakunda. The eco-park was established to facilitate biodiversity conservation, natural regeneration, new plantations and infrastructure development, as well as to promote nature-based tourism to generate income. The park, 405 hectares (1,001 acres), and

20306-640: Was in the fields of palaeography and epigraphy. He won the Jubilee Research Prize of the Calcutta University for The Origin of the Bengali Script published in 1919. He was the first to study the proto-Bangla script , the original form of Bangla script. He wrote the classic historical works on medieval Indian coins , and the standard works on the iconography of Indian art, in particular Gupta sculpture and architecture. His best known work

20449-562: Was promoted to the rank of Superintending Archaeologist of the Western Circle in 1917. In 1924, he was transferred to the Eastern Circle and took part in the excavations at Paharpur . He took voluntary retirement in 1926. After teaching at the University of Calcutta , he later joined the Banaras Hindu University in 1928 and held this post till his premature death on 23 May 1930. Bandyopadhyay's first major independent professional work

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