Spotlight
Jahangirnagar University crisis - mired in a stalemate
Amidst all the commotion at Jahangirnagar University, this issue of the Star Weekend attempts to discern the trajectory of the disaster by sieving it through a chronological timeline, collated from reports published in The Daily Star and other major national newspapers. We start from the reappointment of the VC and take the reader through all that has happened till date, all that has brought this renowned academic institution to a standstill.This timeline is certainly not exhaustive. What it demands of the reader is discernment, analysis and conscious awareness of the ever-persistent, wider issues that these events represent. Where does it all begin, and where does it end? Why should a public university be in such a place to begin with?
East Jurain: Worst place to live in Dhaka?
Ashraful Islam, a retired government official, built a two-story house in Dhaka’s east Jurain neighbourhood in 1996. He spent his forty years of savings and even exhausted his wife’s fixed deposit to build this dwelling.
Stone- Crushers Dying of silicosis, failed by courts
Burimari union, a border village nestling in a nook of the Indian district of Cooch Behar, is a village of stones and stone-crushing yards.
Jamdani: A fabric of then and now
Along the banks of the Sitalakhya river in Narayanganj, some 20 villages in Sonargaon, Rupganj, and Siddhirganj in particular, women villagers starch yarn in lime and toasted rice to make warp yarn—the vertical, lengthwise weaves that make up a fabric.
TERROR RISING
The latest, but probably not the last, victim of this culture of impunity is Abrar Fahad, a second-year student of the electrical and electronic engineering department of Bangladesh University of Science and Technology (BUET).
A long, hard look at our teachers
For months, our public universities have been erupting in protests, with students demanding some very basic things: vice-chancellors who are not corrupt, teachers who cannot bribe their way into the university, student political wings who do not extort or oppress (or murder), effective sexual harassment policies, and freedom of expression.
Youth against fear and injustice
The public universities, old and new, are in quite a sorry state. It seems that these institutions exist only to offer support for the government’s misrule.
The story of Teesta
The story of Teesta begins 23,386 ft above the sea-level at the Pahunri glacier nestled between the Tibet and India border.
Lure of the confirmed A+
The neighbourhood around Dhanmondi Lake is a quiet residential area. On each side of the narrow roads, there are only residential buildings, a few grocery stores and the tranquil greenery of Dhanmondi Park.
Something wicked this way comes
Propping up a hood against a mild December chill, a lone figure strides forward along the train platform.
Coming home in coffins
If you haven't hit 45, you are ideally not supposed to worry about suffering from medical conditions such as brain strokes or heart attacks.
Editing out 1971
The tendency to change textbooks according to the ruling party's ideology and its own version of history has meant that millions of students have learned distorted, inconclusive versions of history.
Not seen, not heard, not believed
Over the last month Star Weekend surveyed and interviewed 300 people to find the answer to this question: why do child sexual abuse cases not get reported, and what can be done to rectify it? The respondents included social workers who deal with these cases, lawyers, eye-witnesses and 195 child sexual assault survivors themselves.
Death camps for wildlife
Juboraj, the 19-year-old ailing lion is awaiting death in a cage at Comilla Zoo. His skeletal body and the rotting wounds on his back are stark signs of the extreme negligence that put him in this fatal state.
5 years since Tazreen: delayed compensation and deferred justice
It has been five years since Reba leaped out of the third floor of the Tazreen garments factory and fractured both her legs. It's been half-a-decade since a rod pierced through Akash's eyebrow, after he smashed a window in an attempt to escape the burning floor. It has also been five years since either of them have had a good night's sleep.
The militant money maker
The man takes different names but introduces himself as an automobile trader to all. He lures people into buying vehicles at prices far lower than the market rate, citing special connections with the custom officials at Chittagong Port.
The spectre of Red October: 100 years of the Russian Revolution
The 1917 October Revolution was a watershed moment in history. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels set the philosophical vision for the scientific theory of revolution, and even actively fought for it, but it was Vladimir Lenin under whose stewardship it became a reality.
The abandoned mothers
Thirteen-year-old Rupa Akter begs on a foot over-bridge in the capital's Shewrapara area, with her eight-month-old son, Nirob. Akter lives in a makeshift house (if one can call the threadbare tarp tent a house) under the bridge—her unemployed husband left her and married another woman during her pregnancy.