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.
The definitive writer's guide to surviving this democracy
Are you a writer, journalist, blogger or Facebook user? Do you find yourself thinking long and hard about the dwindling state of affairs in the country?
LAND IS PRICELESS ADIVASI LIVES ARE NOT
Purti Munda, the forefather of Mahasweta Devi's adivasi hero, Chotti Munda, had lamented how, wherever he goes, however remote the place, someone appears right away – “Whites-Bangalis-Biharis” – to snatch away his land, and along with it, his peace of mind.
WHO GETS TO DEFINE YOU?
Imagine a life of never fitting in, of constant ridicules and derisions, of being shunned by your own family, of being denied jobs and a chance at a “comfortable” life, of being harassed and assaulted, often sexually, because of who you are.
For the Kalpana Chakma I know and the one I never will
I never knew Kalpana di – not personally anyway -- the fearless indigenous activist who was snatched away from us by “mysterious” powers-that-be 19 years ago, when she was only 20 years of age.
Consuming Unspeakable Tragedies
During Rana Plaza, the media interviewed dying workers “LIVE” and went into the collapsed building with heavy recording equipment despite warnings that they might hurt survivors.
See no evil, catch no evil
If police response during the attack was abhorrent, how they reacted to it subsequently was even more disgraceful.
Mourning the violence of capital(ism)
ON March 21, 2014, I received the news that Sumaya Khatun, my friend and comrade, a 16-year-old girl who used to work at Tazreen Garments, passed away after battling a cancerous tumour for over a year.
Are some women more equal than others?
Happy International Women's Day!” I cry excitedly to the first woman I meet in the morning: our cook, Shefali, as she brings a steaming