Naimul Karim

The on-arrival mess

30-year-old Sharmin Akhter* holds dual citizenship. Born to a German father and a Bangladeshi mother, she possesses both countries' passports. She was nevertheless nearly deported from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport earlier this month.

5y ago

Will Bangladesh field its best ever team in the 2019 World Cup

Mashrafe Bin Mortaza celebrated his 200th ODI in style earlier this week, with a three-wicket haul that outfoxed a hard-hitting West Indian line-up and restricted the visitors to a below-par total, which the Tigers eventually cruised past with ease at Mirpur.

5y ago

Can bank alliances prevent human trafficking?

In early 2018, the Italian police intercepted a trafficking ring that dealt with workers from Bangladesh and India. Similar to almost every other trafficking story, the workers, in this case as well, were given false promises of jobs and brought to the country in exchange of exorbitant recruitment fees.

6y ago

The numbers that reflect the misery of our migrants

A recent report published by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) on the impact of migration on household income, expenditure and poverty, highlights a number of interesting trends.

6y ago

Bangladesh's innovation challenge

A physicist from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) dominated the headlines last month when she, and her team of 25, made a breakthrough discovery in cancer detection.

6y ago

The dangerous half degree

A new report published last week by the United Nation's Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organisation consisting of leading climate scientists from all over the world, has warned that by 2030, the earth's temperature is expected to witness an increase by at least half a degree.

6y ago

From the shores of hell & back

“They thought I was dead,” Abdul tells Star Weekend. “I was stuck in a jail in Libya for over four months and I never had the chance to contact my family. They thought I had fallen from the boat [on the way to Italy from Libya] into the dangerous sea and disappeared forever,” he says.

6y ago

Is the future of Bangladesh cricket actually in danger?

Bangladesh's young cricketers came under immense criticism in the recently concluded Asia Cup. It did not take too long for people to dismiss the likes of Nazmul Hossain Shanto, Liton Das and Mosaddek Hossain.

6y ago
June 1, 2018
June 1, 2018

Jailed and forgotten

Forty-year-old Azaher Ali is in a fix and isn't sure how he should react. He has just met his daughter and his grand-daughter for the first time in years. His daughter was just 11 months old, the last time he held her. Today, she's almost 20 and has a child of her own.

March 23, 2018
March 23, 2018

Riding on momentum

The recently concluded Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka will no doubt be remembered for a long time. From the competitiveness of each of the three teams to the drama towards the end of the tri-series, each little element contributed to it being one of the most memorable T20I competitions.

March 16, 2018
March 16, 2018

Time to go?

Sara Ansari is delighted. She can finally drive in her own country thanks to a recent change in reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The changes have just begun to take effect; Sara, however, has been holding a license for a couple of years. She got it from Saudi Arabia's neighbouring country, Bahrain, and would go there every weekend, just to drive around and have a good time.

March 8, 2018
March 8, 2018

Not yet a country for sportswomen

It was the evening of September 2016. A brilliant display of attacking football by Marzia and Co helped Bangladesh's Under-16 women's team come back after conceding an early goal to beat their closest group rivals, Chinese Taipei, in the Asian Football Confederation's Under-16 Women's Championship Qualifiers. The intense finish sealed the girls a spot in the much-coveted final round of the Championships.

February 16, 2018
February 16, 2018

Confronting a Digital Storm

With more than 300,000 copies printed per day, Faula de S. Paulo is one of Brazil's largest newspapers. From the urban middle class

February 9, 2018
February 9, 2018

The bot bubble

How are clickers countering the depreciating value of the Like button?

February 2, 2018
February 2, 2018

The same old story with a new twist

The other day, a friend of mine wanted to write a Facebook status about how poorly a particular hospital in the capital had treated her

January 26, 2018
January 26, 2018

When pigeons take the centre stage

How much would you pay for a pigeon? Let's rephrase that question. Would you pay to buy a pigeon at all in the first place? After all, there's plenty of hard work involved in breeding them. From providing them with filtered water and a variety of grains to hosting them in a huge space on your terrace, it's not easy.

January 19, 2018
January 19, 2018

Reflections of Dhaka's broken society inside a broken shelter

In a quiet corner of Mirpur, barely a kilometer away from the hustle and bustle of the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, lies urban Dhaka's only government shelter. It's a place that provides refuge to a wide array of individuals.

January 5, 2018
January 5, 2018

The ones who never returned

The end of 2017 witnessed the return of a number of individuals who had disappeared in the second half of the year. Most of the 15 individuals, who had been missing since August last year, either returned to their respective families in the last three months or were shown as arrested based on various cases.