Opinion

ESSAY / Ali Riaz’s ‘More than Meets the Eye’ and a writer’s responsibility

Writers and intellectuals are obligated to stir moral indignation at gross injustices and the plight of the masses.

Why Randomised Controlled Trials need to include human agency

There’s a buzz abroad in the development community around a new way to tackle extreme poverty. For exemple BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP) programme combines asset transfers (usually livestock), cash stipends, and intensive mentoring to women and families in extreme poverty in order to help them “graduate” into more sustainable livelihoods within two years.

After Bhola / Five takes on the proliferation of fake news to instigate communal unrest and its larger political implications

Violence in Bhola preceded with a familiar pattern of events, blaming a member of a religious minority for demeaning Islam, creating a frenzy and then mobilising the angry people to the street.

A BAN ON STUDENT POLITICS / Cutting the head to cure a headache?

Speaking as a representative of the students, I want to reiterate that the BUET students are demanding that only party politics be banned on campus—not student politics in general. To be more specific, they are demanding the ban of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).

A Vices’ circle

I don’t know whether to call it luck that we get to witness the development of a brand-new English phrase right under our noses. The

From victims to villains: The changing discourse on Rohingyas

Yet another attempt to send Rohingyas back to Myanmar ended up in an embarrassing debacle last week: Not a single Rohingya

Opinion / Neoliberal apologetics: The fallacy of boycotting meat to save the Amazon

This week, the tragic news that massive wildfires are raging in the Amazon has shocked the world. As photos of burning trees, fleeing

Opinion / The one thing missing from the conversation

What Priya Saha cited to Donald Trump is a statistical fallacy, and downright irresponsible, but what is way more problematic was our reaction to it.

Failing our role?

Doyasona Chakma and Monti Chakma returned just as mysteriously as they disappeared. The two women, both of whom are core elected members of the Hill Women's Federation, were dropped off by their abductors after a month of being held captive.

How the quota reform movement was shaped by social media

The recent quota reform protests took place as much on the streets of Dhaka as it did online, particularly on Facebook. Pitched battles in the middle of the night resulted as people responded to updates in real time. Events at the University of Dhaka (DU) led to uproar spreading to other universities in the city and other major cities of the country, where the youth took up protests in solidarity as well as a shared demand that the quota system, which reserves

A law to gag your online freedom

Less than a month after Bangladesh's cabinet approved the 'Digital Security Act 2018' in late January, Human Rights Watch, a top rights group, published a strong response in its website. Pointing out the vagueness of Section 31 of the draft act, which would criminalise posting of information that “disturbs or is about to disturb the law and order situation,” HRW said, “Almost any criticism of the government may lead to dissatisfaction and the possibility of

Organise and Resist Oppression

Hello dear reader. You may be a feminist, a boy, a woman, or just flipping through. We are no longer in a situation where individuals can win by themselves. People need to be organised, and organise themselves, their peoples. Many communities have been organised decades now for their...

The same old story with a new twist

The other day, a friend of mine wanted to write a Facebook status about how poorly a particular hospital in the capital had treated her

Single-shaming in Dhaka

I say this with conviction: it is an arduous task staying single in Dhaka. If you are a single woman, and self-dependent, you will probably agree with me on how difficult it is to just BE, let alone have any radical aspirations.

Those glares...

He was grinning from ear to ear as I headed towards him, his deep-set eyes beaming with joy. All of a sudden, that look of love vanished. He had spotted the man walking beside me, my “bestie”, laughing deliriously over some awful joke I'd just cracked.