October 2, 2022
Who wants a piece of forest?
Plans to build a prison on forestland show that the country is in environmental free-fall
August 6, 2022
How to avert the next level crossing disaster
Despite huge investments being made in the railways, the authorities are struggling to offer decent services thanks to sheer corruption and irregularities.
July 18, 2022
Digital Bangladesh: One step forward, two steps back?
“Digital Bangladesh” continues to be a central plank of the ruling Awami League, despite the failure of its techno-utopian Vision 2021.
July 3, 2022
Teachers aren’t under siege, but justice, civility and reason are
Here’s an image that will likely be seared into our memory forever: a teacher being forced to wear a garland of shoes around his neck.
June 22, 2022
EC’s big nothing: From a crowning moment to a humbling experience
Now that the Cumilla City Corporation (CCC) election is over and everything there was to see and hear has been seen and heard, we need to address the elephant in the room.
June 8, 2022
And the Nobel Prize for Violence Goes to…
No, silly, there is no such prize for violence. That’s just a conversation starter. After all, what better way to invoke the mighty Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) than with a nod to violence?
May 30, 2022
Mega projects, mega dreams: But where is that omelette the government promised us?
The pitfall of measuring development based on macrodata is that it shows the big picture, but fails to account for development achieved, if at all, on a micro/personal level.
May 20, 2022
Cumilla polls, a litmus test for EC, and the shadow of drugs
For a party so image-conscious and so demanding of "clean image" from its candidates, Awami League surely knows how to make a muck of things and draw unflattering attention.
April 29, 2022
If justice had a face now, it would be of victims wronged twice
The idea of a justice system hinges on people’s faith in its ability to offer fair solutions. So justice, as the saying goes, should not only be done, but be seen to be done as well, so that people’s faith in it is kept intact.
April 14, 2022
Hankering for rural contact? Pahela Baishakh isn’t the answer
It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a Pahela Baishakh in the middle of Ramadan. The convergence of the two occasions, not necessarily a clash of ideologies, begs appreciation of life in its many nuances and complexities.