August 6, 2022
Government’s decision to hike fuel prices will hurt every section of society
The rise in fuel prices is an illogical decision that will only harm ordinary citizens and fail to deal with the root causes of the crisis that Bangladesh is currently facing.
May 24, 2022
GDP: A misleading measure of development
Annual GDP refers to the financial value of all the products and services produced in a country in a given year. This means as a country’s financial transactions increase, so does GDP.
May 1, 2022
We are the 99%: From factory workers to the new working middle class
In 1886, three years after the death of Karl Marx, the May Day movement took place. Earlier, in his book Das Kapital, Marx analysed the simultaneous rise of capitalism and the development of the working class.
January 19, 2022
Free our universities of suppression and violence
It is a matter of common sense that a university is supposed to create space and opportunities to generate knowledge, open up scopes for creative ideas and thinking, invite questions against the existing knowledge and system, and raise voices against injustice, discrimination and oppression.
August 26, 2021
The desperate plight of workers in pandemic
They work in mills and factories, also under tin sheds in squalid conditions. They begin their long days commuting in crammed public transport vehicles or taking long walks, braving monsoon rain or summer heat.
July 27, 2021
The case for unfettered internet freedom
As human beings, we enjoy the right to think and express ourselves.
December 16, 2020
From ‘socialism’ to disaster capitalism
“The demonstration of superfluous consumption amidst mass hardship must be eliminated. Thus sumptuous hotel dinners, the exhibition of costly jewellery and dress, and the display of surplus motor space speeding past long queues for heavily overloaded public transport, to mention only a few, must be limited severely.” — Professor Anisur Rahman, Member of first Planning Commission, 1974.
November 29, 2019
Media under surveillance capitalism
Yes, our world has entered into a new phase of rule which can be termed as surveillance capitalism, at home as well as on a global scale. Shoshana Zuboff, the author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism writes, “At its core, surveillance capitalism is parasitic and self-referential.
October 11, 2019
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.
May 3, 2019
Workers’ cry in workers’ land
Bangladesh is a workers’ land. More than seven million people are working here as manufacturing workers, nearly nine million in hotels and tea shops, more than four million in transport, two million in construction and more than 20 million women and men are actively engaged in agriculture.