THE SOUND AND THE FURY

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.

4m ago

Death is built into our cityscapes

Why do authorities gamble with our lives?

9m ago

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.

10m ago

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.

11m ago

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

1y ago

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

1y ago

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?

1y ago

Why I feel suffocated by Dhanmondi

Dhanmondi these days is a cacophony of people, traffic, events, vendors, schools, hospitals, restaurants, and construction sites.

1y ago

From remittance-warriors to criminals

If life were a film with a wholesome ending, traffickers of the 106 Bangladeshis stuck in Vietnam would have been swiftly arrested.

4y ago

Deadly encounters

In a rare instance in the long and not-so-glorious history of extra-judicial killings in Bangladesh, justice, it appears, is on its way to being served for the murder of Major (retd) Rashed Sinha.

4y ago

Ethical business is not a one-way street

It really warms my cold, judgmental heart when I hear grandiloquent statements from Bangladeshi RMG factory owners about the importance of ethical business as they plead with big global brands to “do the right thing” and “stand by poor Bangladeshi workers”.

4y ago

Corona is only as cruel as capitalism’s weakest link

That capitalism is cruel should come as no surprise to those who understand either the meaning of cruelty or the logic of capitalism.

4y ago

One more nail in the coffin of free press

A barrage of fireworks light up the smoggy skies of Dhaka and I feel as if I’m in the opening scenes of a dystopian film.

4y ago

The devil in development

The word “development” - eliciting as it does grandiloquent notions of progress - has become, at least in Bangladesh, something of a red herring.

8y ago

If our democracy could talk, what would it say?

When people resist what the government would like to wholesale, impose, or force-feed as “development”, democracy seems quite at ease to quell people's resistances, violate pledges and dismiss the age-old demands of the adivasi communities.

8y ago

Who says we're not free?

Last week, Freedom House, an independent watchdog organisation that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom...

8y ago

When only men make the news

On the onset, it seems women are everywhere in the media. You switch on the TV, there is inevitably an attractive woman luring you

8y ago

A lesson on lessons not learnt

Eleven years ago, on a hot, stuffy day not unlike today, a building had come crashing down on the sweating workers of a sweater factory.

8y ago