I am delighted to be returning to Bangladesh in its Golden Jubilee year, and I look forward to celebrating the tremendous achievements of the past half century with friends old and new.
As is known, the current provisions of the EU’s Generalised System of preferences (EU-GSP) scheme are being revised at present in anticipation of the new scheme to be put in place as of January 1, 2024.
Upon reading the news headline for the incident I am about to discuss, I only felt a momentary, dull pain in my gut or thereabouts. Because while it is a shocking incident that would rob you of hope, the elements of the story are all too familiar to us all.
As tensions over the Taiwan Strait mount, everyone needs to think about whether war is inevitable. Ukrainian revolutionary Leon Trotsky once said: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” And if we slip into war by what World War I historian Barbara Tuchman called the March of Folly, can the Great Powers step back from mutual nuclear annihilation?
The year 2020 marked a watershed in global efforts to end tuberculosis (TB) by 2030. First, it was because, by 2020, the TB-affected countries aimed to achieve the first set of “End TB” milestones: a 35 percent reduction in TB deaths, a 20 percent
I have been feeling unwell since October 13. After the mayhem in Cumilla, I knew it wouldn’t be the last. With a broken heart, my father-in-law and I, along with my son, decided to continue with our tradition of puja visits and mandap-hopping, yet we were all deeply disturbed, witnessing the carnage unravelling with a helpless rage.
Today, on October 22, we celebrate National Road Safety Day. But why? Not why we care about safety—the devastating toll of accidents makes it clear why it is important—but why call it Road Safety Day? If we are using roads to travel from place to place, and we want to be able to do so safely, why not call it Safe Travels Day?
I was around 10 when I first heard about the idea of, as it was then known, global warming and how Bangladesh will one day go underwater as sea levels rise.
It is not easy to rationalise some of the recent actions of the government related to the realm of governance, in other words, related to us the people. For now, let us address the second wave of the pandemic and the government’s actions or reactions to deal with it.
May 21, 2021, Friday, 2 AM Israeli local time: an Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, ending the recent 11-day Israeli bombardment of Gaza. All told, the attack on the besieged Palestinian strip claimed the lives of 248 Palestinians, including 66 children.
Professor Dr Shahida Akhter, a well-known child health specialist, passed away prematurely from liver cancer at 59 years of age on May 1, 2021. She was soft-spoken, introverted, humble and beloved by many people.
The world is having to tackle three major emergencies at the same time. The first is obviously the Covid-19 pandemic that is still raging around the world, the second is climate change, which is also getting much worse every year, and finally, there is biodiversity loss, which will mean the loss of up to a million species if we cannot stem the tide.
I felt distressed and embarrassed after coming across the news of senior journalist Rozina Islam’s ordeal of harassment at the health ministry and her eventual arrest.
The internet and its cloak of anonymity seemingly avails us with freedom on all counts. What people see of one’s life on their social media profile/s, for instance, is what they want people to see.
Few Muslim women received an education and fewer still entered regional or national politics when Noor Jehan was born in the village of Taranagar in the District of Murshidabad on May 22, 1925.
The latest Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum makes clear that around the world, from Bangladesh to the United States, the impact of the pandemic has disproportionately hit those most vulnerable or in need.
In this age of intelligent machines, journalists often keep information that is sensitive, confidential and self-evidentiary in their laptops or mobile phones, or in cloud storage facilities.
