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.
Sharing news on social media is the newest and perhaps one of the fastest-growing “rituals” of the world. When introduced to the internet nearly two decades ago, an academic relative of mine in the US, whom we would otherwise consider progressive,
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic brought the world literally to a standstill, with infections in the millions and deaths of more than 1.8 million people.
Hopefully, we learned many lessons from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. One of them is the importance of oxygen for our survival. Normally it is available free of cost.
The cargo vessel involved in a hit and run incident in Narayanganj on Sunday, leading to the capsize of a passenger launch that killed at least 34 people, was seized at a dock in Gazaria, Munshiganj.
n the early 1930s, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal in an attempt to combat the effects of the Great Depression. The programme had three main pillars: relief (for the unemployed), recovery (of the economy and job creation), and reform (through new regulations and social-welfare programmes).
Over the past decade particularly, the Bangladesh-India bilateral economic relationship has entered a new terrain with the strengthening of traditional ties and foundations being laid to deepen and broaden the partnership in going forward.
Being born and brought up in Lalbag of Old Dhaka, I often find myself in the middle of a large, rapidly changing archaeological site by the Buriganga River. But as a climate change enthusiast,
Here we were, sailing quite smoothly after the first wave of the pandemic and congratulating ourselves for having “handled” it well. Even the WHO paid us compliments. But suddenly, within a few weeks, we seem to have gone right back where we started.
The Covid-19 crisis has disproportionately impacted people on the move, and as we now enter the next phase of the response—the widescale vaccine roll-out—we need to ensure that “leaving no one behind” and “equitable access to vaccines” are not just phrases, but practice.
I haven’t visited my children or grandchildren for nearly a year and a half, neither have they visited me. They live in the USA, and I in Europe.
