Does our present reservation system really promote the empowerment of women politicians?
It is heartening to see that the media has been preparing statements based on the information in affidavits submitted by the candidates who are running for parliament.
Continued denial of voting and other political and democratic rights is bound to become a very serious threat in the future.
Voters will be deprived of the opportunity to choose from worthy candidates in a one-sided election.
A number of controversial decisions, actions and statements of the EC itself has put it in this situation.
It is clear that the 15th Amendment was neither legitimate nor constitutional, as no referendum was held before its passage.
The elections to Barishal and Khulna city corporations held on May 12, 2023 cannot be considered free, fair and credible, as they were non-competitive.
It must be recognised that the election is not a one-day phenomenon – it is a process involving multiple interrelated steps
My former classmate, now the finance minister, presented in the Parliament the budget for the year (also the golden anniversary of our independence), and I congratulate him for this honour.
On May 24, the Cabinet Division wrote to the Secretaries of Security Division of the Home Ministry and the Election Commission (EC) to amend the National Identity Registration Act (Jatiyo Parichoypotro Nibondon Ain), 2010 and transfer the personnel and infrastructure used for providing NID services, which includes 594 server-stations, to the Security Division.
Despite the claims made a few months ago that Bangladesh has successfully—more successfully than many western countries—beat back the coronavirus,
Bangladesh was unable to put in quarantine 213 students who came from the Chinese city of Wuhan—where the coronavirus originated—in early February and the subsequent influx of hundreds of thousands of people from countries like Italy where the virus was causing havoc.
A recent headline in Prothom Alo (June 26, 2020) stated, “Amartya Sen and Noam Chomsky showered Kerala with praise for their successful containment of the coronavirus”.
On April 16, as coronavirus continued to spread through the country, the government declared all of Bangladesh to be at risk from the pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of coronavirus a global pandemic. Over 14,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 have been infected, although there is uncertainty about the numbers as many of those infected may not show symptoms.
In 1964, I was enrolled as a student at the University of Dhaka (DU) and became active in student politics, although my involvement began during the education movement of the early 1960s.
One question that I repeatedly faced in the last few days was: how were the elections of the two Dhaka city corporations?
The Election Commission, particularly the CEC, has been repeatedly assuring us that the upcoming elections of the two Dhaka city corporations will be free and fair.
