The writer is an Atlanta (US) based freelance journalist.
Both the Dhaka Lit Fest and Ekushey Boi Mela offer sobering insights into the underlying socioeconomic challenges that have hamstrung Bangla publishing.
The war in Ukraine has spawned a mindless Russophobic war hysteria in the West that is appalling. It reminds me of my days in the US during the Iraq war. As Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rages on, one of the strangest spectacles is a bunch of video clips of Fox News Channel’s conservative
The Nazrul Festival 2022, a two-day cultural extravaganza that was open to the public, has recently concluded.
A year ago, on January 6, armed, violent supporters of President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol. Lawmakers hid in fear of their lives.
The USA’s battle against racism continues to be a Sisyphean struggle. No sooner do you bask in the comforting awareness of the enormous strides the nation has taken than you are yanked by the scruff of your neck to face some dreadful sign that this ugly affliction is well and alive.
My recent open letter to Hindu brothers and sisters published in this newspaper was accompanied by a photograph that is seared in my memory.
My dearest Hindu sisters and brothers, I am overcome with grief, outrage and shame as I write to you.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves a distinguished—if unavoidably mixed—legacy as she ends a long stint at the helm of Germany, the economic powerhouse of the European Union.
It was a political circus almost as outsized as America’s largest state: California.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is rightly celebrated for leading the people of Bangladesh to independence after a prolonged, decades-long struggle that required acute political acumen, a remarkable capacity to win the hearts of his people, and most important of all, that rare sort of courage that had the power to stare squarely into the eyes of death.
Racism is America’s original sin. Its manifestations are myriad, and notwithstanding occasional spurts of progress, the struggle for justice continues to be an uphill battle.
No child, Palestinian or Israeli, whoever they are, should ever have to worry that death will rain from the sky. How many of my colleagues are willing to say the same, to stand for Palestinian human rights as they do for Israeli? How many Palestinians have to die for their lives to matter?”
Dear Satyajit Ray: Happy 100th birthday, maestro.
Hello from Georgia, ground zero in a massive US political battle.
"Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power.
Despite razor-thin majorities in the US Senate and the House—where corralling lawmakers can be as frustrating as herding cats—Biden has managed the near-impossible task of steering through Congress a massive USD 1.9 trillion bill about to profoundly change America.
Every Ekushey, we renew our pledge to the language martyrs of 1952 that we will ensure that our beloved Bangla continues to flourish. To redeem this pledge, we need to remember a critical fact: The continued survival of a language depends on how well it adapts to the changing technologies of the age.
The trial of former US President Donald Trump in the US Senate had all the hallmarks of a Shakespearean tragedy. The Democratic impeachment managers put together a chilling case proving Trump’s complicity in the January 6 assault on the US Congress.
During a recent round-trip from Atlanta, US to Dhaka, Bangladesh, I had wildly contrasting experiences in the two cities as I tried to get tested for Covid-19.
America’s quadrennial celebration of peaceful transition of power is one of its more hallowed traditions.
As the world continues to reel from images of the outrageous assault of the US Capitol by Trump’s goons, history was made in the southern US state of Georgia this month.
Here in America, are we finally beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel?
The toxic political fallout of the recent presidential elections has truly tarnished America’s reputation.
President Donald Trump will leave the White House in January, thank goodness. Unfortunately, his malign influence on American politics will remain.
Never before has a hard-won victory had such a bitter edge.
Today, Americans are terrified of a pandemic virus whose infection rate has spiked up again. With just four percent of the world’s population, the US already has a quarter of the world’s Covid-19 deaths.
Last year, when about 150 people—a substantial chunk from out-of-state—gathered in Atlanta for a convention, the event had an intriguing twist: The first ever World Bengali Literature Conference, as the event billed itself, focused exclusively on Bangla literature.
US President Donald Trump could give Caligula a run for his money. The deranged, violent Roman emperor had once made his donkey a consul, but Trump is no slouch when it comes to outrageous behaviour.
The sheer brazenness of the Republican volte face following the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is breathtaking. In 2016, eight months before presidential elections, US Senate Republicans balked when US President Barack Obama wanted to fill a vacancy in the US Supreme Court. They invented a new “principle” that in an election year, this should wait until elections.
Americans elect their president through a crazy-quilt mosaic of elections conducted by a bewildering variety of local jurisdictions spread out over the entire country, and its wheels may come off come November.
“Owning the libs and pissing off the media. That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it,” said long-time senior congressional Republican aide Brendan Buck on what the Republican Party stood for today, while in conversation with Politico reporter Tim Alberta.
It’s hard to believe a full 45 years have passed since you became the victim of one of the most barbaric political murders in living memory.
Online juggernaut Amazon owns Kindle, the 600-pound gorilla in the US electronic book space. Its global presence is also formidable.
In “The War of the Worlds,” HG Wells’ science fiction novel, the world is brought to its knees by a vastly more technologically advanced species. The tides are turned after the humble bacteria triumphs where man failed, felling the Martians.
In the long tortuous history of the battle for the emancipation of Blacks that continues to this day in the US, progress has sometimes been so slow, and recalcitrant racist biases have been so resistant to change, that the tardy progress or lack thereof has been a cause of bitter frustration.
A horrified world is watching as the US goes up in flames. An appalling racist murder by police has triggered protests in more than 140 US cities. Rioting, looting, cities ablaze, police brutality, night curfews in major cities—it’s all happening. The federal administration is ratcheting up tensions by unleashing the US military.
As the world reels from the biggest health crisis we have seen in our lifetime, some countries have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic better than others.
The voluntary organisation Bidyanondo is a stirring example of what amazing things goodwill can achieve. It’s youthful founder, Peru-based Kishore Kumar Das, has a richly deserved, devoted following of millions.
Here we are, in the middle of a global pandemic, desperately trying to figure out how to survive. The US now has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading nation both in terms of number of deaths and identified cases.
After a spirited, valiant battle for the Democratic nomination for US presidential elections in November, Bernie Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, called it a day.
It is one of the less salubrious facts of life that at times of profound concern and insecurity, charlatans, cranks and confidence tricksters come out of the woodwork.
"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” — Warren Buffett, US investor and business magnate
The primary process for choosing a presidential candidate in the US can be inordinately long drawn and unwieldy.
As citizens of Dhaka vote for Dhaka’s twin city corporation elections today, this is a good time to take stock of their significance. We underestimate the importance of these elections at our peril.
As the impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump unfolds in the US Senate, something very strange is going on.
US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to assassinate top Iranian military leader Qassim Suleimani has brought the US back into the business of killing foreign leaders.
The results of the recent elections in the United Kingdom took me back to another ghastly political moment.
Here’s the awful truth in a nutshell.
It’s not exactly breaking news that another accomplice of US President Donald J Trump has been found guilty and is contemplating at jail time. This is something, alas, that has been occurring from time to time for a while.
it is fair to say that given the political mess, leading Anglophone countries are drawing a mixture of horror and derision from the rest of the world. Both are richly deserved. While you’re at it, throw into the mix a queasy, disquieting feeling about a disaster waiting to happen.
It is, when you think about it, a bit of a Faustian bargain for the Democrats. A few whiny Republican attempts notwithstanding, the Republican candidacy for the 2020 presidential elections is cast in stone, as it pretty much always is in the US when an incumbent is running for president.
The possible impeach-ment of US President Donald Trump is the talk of the town. However, many people, particularly those outside the US, have better things to do than delve into the minutiae of US politics and history. Here’s a brief primer on how the process of
One wonders with a resigned sigh: Is life not depressing enough? Here we are, in the United States, saddled with President Donald J Trump, the leader of the free world who on any given day can blithely contradict in the afternoon what he says in the morning.
The passing away of Toni Morrison shook up America, well as it should.
A few days may have passed, and the news media may have moved on, but US President Donald Trump’s racist rant on Twitter on July 14 has ripped open a raw wound for US immigrants of colour (this writer included), that will take a long, long time to heal.