Our recently published study has found several alarming factors contributing to declining academic freedom in the universities of Bangladesh.
By the time Muhammad Shahidullah was old enough to begin his secondary education, he already knew five languages. Besides his mother tongue of Bangla, he not only learnt Urdu, Persian and Arabic—perceived to be the languages of Muslims—but he also became proficient in Sanskrit, the primary liturgical language of Hinduism.
When the Internet came, media outlets were faced with two contrasting choices: provide a web version for people to read content freely or risk descending into irrelevance.
Yet another attempt to send Rohingyas back to Myanmar ended up in an embarrassing debacle last week: Not a single Rohingya
September last year, a ranking of countries prepared by Wealth X, a global financial intelligence company, calculating the rise of ultra-rich individuals in their respective populations put Bangladesh on top.
On January 17, police in Khagan, Savar recovered the bullet-hit body of a man who was later identified as Ripon. Ripon, a line chief at a local garment factory, was the prime accused in a gang-rape case involving a female worker from his factory.
The new finance minister, Mustafa Kamal, has vowed to address the longstanding concerns regarding increasing non-performing loans in banks. Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, a noted banker and former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, talks to The Daily Star's Nazmul Ahasan about the issue.
It's common knowledge that many opposition candidates were unable to campaign for themselves in the recently concluded elections
The recent fiasco at Dhaka University (DU), involving a tussle between Chhatra League (BCL) and the protesters against sexual assault, stems from a grossly wrong-headed and reckless administrative decision.
Last week, a video went viral on social media of a protest rally by a group of students at MH Samorita Medical College. They were protesting against the alleged fee hike by the college.
According to media reports, Tabith Awal remains as BNP's man in the Dhaka North mayoral polls, while Awami League is set to choose Atiqul Islam as its candidate.
Former US President Barack Obama has recently joined a growing chorus of critics of social media.
DEVASTATION IN THE WAKE OF FLOODS
In October 2016, one particularly astute professor (let's call her VC-aspirant A) received an intel “through reliable sources” that the government would soon appoint a pro-Vice Chancellor at Rajshahi University,
The year 1979 was probably the first time when the word “disappear” was used as an intransitive word. The New York Times Magazine wrote, “While Miss Iglesias 'was disappeared,' her family's writ of habeas corpus, filed on her behalf, was rejected by the courts.”
Contrary to popular belief, the idea of establishing Bangla Academy predates the language movement.
A week or so ago, a colleague and I needed to fact-check a claim about gun deaths across the United States. We simply googled and found a number of sources. The most cited of these was the US government's own data. The National Center for Health Statistics, like many other federal agencies, preserves an enormous amount of important data on its website.
It's a bit strange to see Chinese president Xi Jinping, of all people, defending globalisation and economic liberalisation in the face of resistance from Donald Trump, the leader of the capitalistic world. But here we are, getting accustomed to a scenario that would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.
