What the Rana Plaza tragedy means in 2024
Let’s visit this discussion on three levels of analysis on the local, national, and global scenarios and impacts.
3w ago
To catch a pirate
Today’s piracy further feeds upon those flows including petroleum and the growing numbers of African/Asian countries involved. Control is now imperative.
2m ago
Foreign policy quandary for Bangladesh: ‘Umbilical’ or ‘geopolitical’?
Bangladesh’s foreign inclinations increasingly sway between “umbilical” and “geopolitical” poles, as principles, policies and preferences compete for priority.
3m ago
The colour of war?
Today’s Red Sea skirmishes raise multifaceted concerns, which range from the war in Gaza widening and awakening old wounds, to geopolitical frontlines being rewritten by shifting chokepoints.
3m ago
Bangladesh as a ‘developed country’: ‘Graduating’ imperatives
“Graduation” has become a Bangladeshi buzzword. Journalists, scholars, and technocrats were working on that term even before November 24, 2021. On that day, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly green-signalled a possible exit from the “least developed country” (LDC) to join the “developing” list from 2026.
2y ago
9/11 anniversary, Afghanistan and values
“What goes around comes around” may be an apt and oft-used cliché, but in referencing 9/11 and Afghanistan, it only embitters. US President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from “forever wars” was supported by 54 percent of US adults, according to a September 4 Pew survey.
2y ago
Afghanistan, Taliban and the United States
Full US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was announced by President Joe Biden on April 14, 2021. It raised eyebrows but did not ruffle public feathers.
2y ago
Branding Bangladesh: The ‘identity’ challenge
Identity matters. It matters most amid flux, which the 21st Century is riddled with. Compromising the past and adding “new” components always knock on identity doors. Distinguishing the non-negotiable identity components from the negotiable gives us a head start.
3y ago
July 29, 2019
Oscillating Anglo-American relations
A rolling stone, as the cliché goes, gathers no moss. According to musician Robert Zimmerman, it is “like a complete unknown,” indeed, “with no direction home.” Under his more popular identity, Bob Dylan, he penned “Like a rolling stone,” often regarded the crème de la crème song in its genre. It might also be the swansong of a fabled bilateral relationship. Gone awry, that relationship arguably symbolises the upended global status of two partners.
July 20, 2019
A Giant Retreat for Mankind
Remember those first words ever spoken from the moon? In the half-century since Neil Armstrong uttered them, the space race has invited many other countries—from the rich to the poor, from the developed to the developing—and even attracted private-sector
June 10, 2019
‘Clash of civilisation’ or crash: Environmental doomsday?
What do the following civilisations have in common: Mesopotamia four millennia ago; the 8th-century Viking Greenland settlement; Mayas from the 10th century; and the Khmer empire in the 15th century?
June 3, 2019
Angela Merkel’s legacy: ‘Holy Roman Empress’?
Historians are often bemused by how the millennia-old Holy Roman Emperor was not holy, nor Roman, nor even an emperor.
May 29, 2019
GPA and beyond: Time to break out of old pedagogical models
Grumpy” was her name. In the flower-filled month of May, the world’s most famous cat of the same name bid her ever-cheering audience a sad adieu. Perhaps not the best of analogies, but it highlights grumpiness in another area, that, fortunately, we can do something about.
May 18, 2019
Galloping Bangladesh: Emperor with no clothes?
Don’t judge a book by its cover.” So goes a popular cliché, though appraisals become more sanguine the more one opens the volume. Recent (April) reports about the country’s top-flight economic growth-rates expose why heeding that message helps keep us on track.
May 4, 2019
There goes the neighbourhood: Sri Lankan spillovers
"Tragedy” only mildly describes Sri Lanka’s bombing spate. It was heinous, stirring the wrong juices, pitting the wrong spiritual brethrens against each other. It was evil, not only fanning flames between two religious groups...
April 21, 2019
Of fires, fates and fortunes
Fire,” Don McLean wrote in “American Pie”, “is the devil's only friend.” It must have been so for Roman Emperor Nero: he anecdotally “fiddled while Rome burned” in 64 AD.
April 6, 2019
'Civilising' Dhaka
Civil society cannot be built this way, upon the salacious preferences of home-builders, bus-drivers/conductors, and environment abusers.
March 31, 2019
Crusading children: Fault in our stars... or ourselves?
At least two truisms can be said about children: every mother and father goes out of her/his way to build the best possible future for them; and the state does not have a choice but to follow suit.
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