THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Did we have to pay such a heavy price for this verdict?
The verdict is in. The Appellate Division through its observations has recommended that quotas be restricted to seven percent: five percent for freedom fighters’ descendants, one percent for ethnic minorities, and one percent for people with disabilities.
The violence of silencing a rape survivor
That justice for rape survivors is a mirage in this country is no news, with a miserable conviction rate of three percent in rape cases.
The price we pay with each deleted word
With each new term of the ruling regime, and each new provision or law, we have learnt a bit more of self-censorship.
Opinion / Govt's priority is to access, not protect, our personal data
The government has heavily invested in purchasing surveillance equipment and enhancing the capacities of various agencies to use them over the years, but it hasn't shown an iota of the same interest in what should have been its priority—protection of citizens’ data
You can’t quell workers’ hunger by opening fire on them
Rather than assuage the workers by announcing a respectable wage, the wage board has essentially fuelled workers’ outrage and made a mockery of the wage negotiation process
Why the delay in declaring minimum wage for RMG workers?
Will the wage board and our policymakers truly hear the stories of backbreaking work and heartbreaking debt of the garment workers, who have kept the economy going even at its worst phases?
Why I feel suffocated by Dhanmondi
Dhanmondi these days is a cacophony of people, traffic, events, vendors, schools, hospitals, restaurants, and construction sites.
If only irony could pay bills…
There are two kinds of numbers that I find difficult to digest these days. The more I try to swallow the one, the more unpalatable the other becomes.
When sentiments reign over reason
Some of us may breathe a sigh of relief that Hriday Mondal, imprisoned for 19 days and denied bail twice, for trying to explain the difference between science and religion to his students, has been granted bail.
An ordinary person’s guide to dangerous online regulations
Two dangerous policy drafts regulating our online presence have been prepared right in front of our noses, and except for a few usual suspects crying wolf, there has been little public outrage over it.
When the state wants to make criminals out of journalists
Anyone who has seen the video of Chattogram-based journalist Golam Sarwar—taken shortly after he was found unconscious on the banks of a canal following a disappearance of three days—is unlikely to forget the helplessness and fear coursing through his bruised being, as he kept on uttering the words, “Please, brother, I won’t write anymore.”
This is not how Hindu devotees wanted to bid farewell to Durga
The scenes are at once familiar and unfamiliar.
The coal conundrum: Are we really moving away from dirty energy?
After a decade of ruthlessly pursuing the world’s dirtiest fuel, the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MoPEMR) is contemplating closing down 13 of the 18 previously approved coal-based power projects around the country and apparently switching to “cleaner” alternatives.
The bloody view from the resort in the hills
The announcement that a five-star “Marriott Hotel and Amusement Park” is being built in Bandarban no doubt comes as welcome news to Bengali elites and the nouveau riche looking for novel and Instagrammable ways of spending their weekends and disposable incomes in the luscious hills of the CHT.
Why are former Tazreen workers still on the streets?
For the last 45 days, at least 40 (former) workers of Tazreen Fashions Limited have been staging a protest on the sidewalks outside the Press Club, unnoticed, for the most part, by the media.
Decrees cannot drown debates
October 7, 2020 marked the first death anniversary of second-year Buet student, Fahad Abrar, who was tortured to death by members of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) for posting a criticism of an agreement signed between Bangladesh and India on the use of the Mongla port, water sharing and export of energy sources.