But is animal cruelty something we only condemn during this particular time of year? What are the subtle and not-so-subtle acts of cruelty we exhibit as we interact with/rear/raise/consume livestock/pets/wildlife?
Prof Gawsia Wahidunnessa Chowdhury is one of two Bangladeshis who were recently named among the top 100 Asian scientists. In an interview with Abida Rahman Chowdhury of The Daily Star, she talks about her current projects, the scope of Bangladesh's policies and why they do not work, and how to encourage more women to take up STEM.
The more roads you build, the more cars there will be to fill them up. I am no expert, but the numbers don’t lie.
Cyclone Mocha was just the first of the season, and Bangladesh will face more in the days to come. We need to focus on a more holistic approach to disaster management, especially the evacuation process and recovery aspect, and not just rely on warnings and people’s willingness to move to shelters.
Do we all feel this heat similarly? The answer is no. It is no secret that if you are among the well-off in this not-so-well-off nation, you are better equipped to deal with this heatwave. There is a deep running inequality as to how the heat affects people.
Just one bystander can cause enough distraction to move the focus from the real situation on hand—which is to stabilise the emergency situation and save lives. So, who is responsible?
Bangladesh supports nearly 1.7 percent of the world's wildlife. How is that wildlife doing? Why does the chirping of birds no longer wake us? When was the last time a frog just showed up in our bathrooms?
As a traveller or visitor, if you have been to Bangladesh, you are no stranger to the shocking green everywhere, the chaos of Dhaka city, the absolute absence of rules anywhere, and if you have a keen eye then the straightforward, smooth and sometimes borderline funny naming of our businesses will surely intrigue you.
Many may know Shibu Kumer Shill as the lead singer of Meghdol, a popular soft rock band; some may know of him as a book cover artist who skillfully merges the contemporary with the traditional.
Once upon a time, in the winter of 2014, in a land far far away—Sundarbans—a young man in his twenties, seeking adventures...
I would not know it then, but it would be a twelve-hour stretch before I would get the chance to interact with another woman, as I made my way from Dhaka to Tanguar Haor. In those hours, journeying to the corner of Sunamganj to watch wildlife conservationists at work, I met, interacted with and received advice from only men. Why so? Where were the women?
It took three separate modes of transportation, a major fight between a bus driver and his helper, and a sleepless night before I managed to reach the foothills of Meghalaya to witness conservation and technology merge and in turn, make history for Bangladesh.
There is a district in the south-west of Bangladesh which is at the epicentre of a drinking water crisis. A crisis that is being exacerbated everyday owing to the realities of climate change.
“If you are happy and you know it, clap your hands…If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet”-goes the lyrics of one of the most familiar songs/rhymes/jingles that we have been exposed to as children.
Below the waters of the Bay of Bengal, roams a fish unlike anything you have seen before. With its long, somewhat bizarre-looking, saw-like rostrum, the Sawfish is a reminder of a prehistoric time, dating back to the Late Cretaceous period. The Sawfish roamed our seas when real, live dinosaurs walked our earth.
It was just a few years after the Liberation War in 1971. Caroline Amena Lauritsen was a child then. She does not remember how old she was back then, but her adoption papers say she was three years old.
From the very moment I took it on, it felt like a Herculean task. To bring back a relic of the past, to clean off the dust from an unused side of the bookshelf and reread Tintin in the wake of the boyish reporter turning 90.
The internet has had a complete ball of a year, thanks to millennials turning older and 'CRAY-zier' and fighting the growing costs of living. If you think that this 'I cannot buy a home because I spent all my money on avocadoes and that is why I am sad' is a problem just in the west, just drag your mouse and zoom in on Dhaka on the map (especially on the tri-state area).
