Badiuzzaman Bay

OF MAGIC & MADNESS

Badiuzzaman Bay is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.

Sacred Corruption: The Unqualified and The Unscrupulous

Corruption in hajj management has come to the limelight after the publication of two reports

2d ago

Living in the land of dying rivers

What's happening to our rivers is not driven just by necessity, but also greed, a general disregard for the sanctity of life, and a reckless can-do-ism.

4d ago

Is there a Bangalee way to celebrate Pahela Baishakh?

The “Bangalee way” in the sense of a single, linear way is a myth at best, and nationalist propaganda at worst.

Release of Prothom Alo reporter Samsuzzaman Shams

In times of crisis, journalists must double down on facts

Facts, once the prerogative of the media, used to be sacred. Now, they are just fodder in an increasingly hostile war of narratives.

The UN got it wrong. We’re not just sad, we’re happily so

We toy with the idea of change, but seek accommodation with the status quo.

Living like the poor, paying like the rich

Inflation followed by greedflation followed by shrinkflation – is there no way out of this trap?

Awami League dragging its feet over promised reforms to the Digital Security Act

Awami League wants us to love DSA. It’s too late now

While the manner in which the DSA is being defended is nothing new, the timing bears significance

Survival of the Noisiest

Living with Dhaka’s noise pollution is a gruelling endurance test.

Why politicians should study human rights

For human rights advocates, 2022 has been a catastrophic year.

In the silos of bureaucrats, public interests are a trifle

To the uninitiated, the public interaction between our prime minister and state officials may seem curious at times.

Is the EC fighting an unwinnable war?

There are a few possible explanations behind why the EC chose to suspend the Gaibandha-5 by-poll

Who wants a piece of forest?

Plans to build a prison on forestland show that the country is in environmental free-fall

How to avert the next level crossing disaster

Despite huge investments being made in the railways, the authorities are struggling to offer decent services thanks to sheer corruption and irregularities.

Digital Bangladesh: One step forward, two steps back?

“Digital Bangladesh” continues to be a central plank of the ruling Awami League, despite the failure of its techno-utopian Vision 2021.

Teachers aren’t under siege, but justice, civility and reason are

Here’s an image that will likely be seared into our memory forever: a teacher being forced to wear a garland of shoes around his neck.

EC’s big nothing: From a crowning moment to a humbling experience

Now that the Cumilla City Corporation (CCC) election is over and everything there was to see and hear has been seen and heard, we need to address the elephant in the room.

And the Nobel Prize for Violence Goes to…

No, silly, there is no such prize for violence. That’s just a conversation starter. After all, what better way to invoke the mighty Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) than with a nod to violence?

Mega projects, mega dreams: But where is that omelette the government promised us?

The pitfall of measuring development based on macrodata is that it shows the big picture, but fails to account for development achieved, if at all, on a micro/personal level.

Cumilla polls, a litmus test for EC, and the shadow of drugs

For a party so image-conscious and so demanding of "clean image" from its candidates, Awami League surely knows how to make a muck of things and draw unflattering attention.

If justice had a face now, it would be of victims wronged twice

The idea of a justice system hinges on people’s faith in its ability to offer fair solutions. So justice, as the saying goes, should not only be done, but be seen to be done as well, so that people’s faith in it is kept intact.

Hankering for rural contact? Pahela Baishakh isn’t the answer

It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a Pahela Baishakh in the middle of Ramadan. The convergence of the two occasions, not necessarily a clash of ideologies, begs appreciation of life in its many nuances and complexities.

Dhaka, for all intents and purposes, is dead

In Dhaka, we don’t live anymore, we merely survive.

Ferry disasters: Let’s not sugarcoat institutional murders

It’s like a scene from a Stephen King movie: a small passenger vessel being “devoured” by a cargo ship about 20 times its size.

No, we were already pathetic before Sunny Leone came

If you think the social media tendency to obsess over trivial matters is problematic, be sure to highlight what’s causing it.

If my buying capacity triples and I don’t know it, does it still count?

Apparently, it does. According to the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). And according to Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud.

A citizen’s manifesto for Election Commission

In his first media briefing on February 28, 2022, the newly sworn-in Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal ticked almost all the right boxes.

The CEC Is Gone, Long Live the CEC!

Let me begin with the story of a thought experiment. I did this experiment with a concept known as perspective-taking.

How to read the Sinha murder verdict

For the government, the timing of the Sinha murder verdict on January 31 couldn’t have been worse, with increasing global scrutiny following a US sanction on RAB over allegations of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings.

‘A polarised nation is a paralysed one, and we’re dangerously headed in that direction’

A lot has changed since the start of the pandemic. For many of us, it has come to instantiate the kind of epoch-making events that upend not just life but also perspectives, leaving a profound mark on the civilisation. As a writer and thinker, what has it altered or reinforced about your view of our society?

‘The state has always deemed universities hostile to its interests’

In your long illustrious career, you’ve written extensively on many issues, but I find your enduring interest in poverty, rights and justice fascinating. Has there been any personal motivation for pursuing what has been your lifelong crusade against the forces feeding off people’s sufferings?

The story of the middle class you’re never told

What is the picture that flashes through your mind when someone talks of social classes? A reader of The Guardian newspaper once made an interesting albeit highly generalised observation.

When faith is a weapon, don’t be surprised by who wields it

A dramatic turn of events since the March 17 attack on Hindu villagers in Sunamganj’s Shalla Upazila has been reshaping the narrative on the culpability of potential actors and, by extension, the politics of communal violence in Bangladesh.

‘Agartala case provided a spark for our dream of independence’

Amanullah is a former Director General of Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) and former Chief Editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS).

‘Mass uprising was a dress rehearsal for our brightest achievements’

January 24 is observed as the Mass Uprising Day. On this day in 1969, young school student Matiur Rahman and a rickshaw puller were shot down by police on the streets of Dhaka, giving further momentum to the movement to remove the Ayub Khan regime from power.

What’s Eating Quader Mirza?

How well do you follow the headlines of your newspapers? If one were to run a quiz to see how well the readers of The Daily Star stack up against each other, the question that is most likely to be at the top of the list would be about the name that appeared most in the headlines of our central pages over the last week.

Rifle, Roti, Aurat: The first novel on the Liberation War

Dawn broke in Bangladesh. Shudipto is an early riser, and today was no exception. But it could have been. He didn’t sleep much last night.

‘Corruption has spread over the whole society’

Dr Iftekharuzzaman is Executive Director, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB). In this interview with Badiuzzaman Bay of The Daily Star, he talks about distinctive features of corruption in Bangladesh, the role of the ACC, the government’s anti-corruption drive, and ways to curb systemic corruption.

The road to development is ‘always’ under construction

What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of the word “development”? I see an image of a signboard, and it’s about the Metro Rail (MRT Line-6) being constructed in Mirpur, connecting different parts of the metropolis.

Kindness can heal what blind faith cannot

I remember there was a time when, owing to my youthful naiveté, I would think that living is more than surviving.

First transgender madrasa: Let it be the spark for a social revolution

On Friday, November 6, the first madrasa for transgender Muslims in Bangladesh was opened in Dhaka through a private initiative.

Sarwar’s abduction: A chilling message for journalists

Late in the evening on November 1, 2020, journalist Golam Sarwar, who went missing on October 29, was found unconscious near a canal at Sitakunda, Chattogram.

The political pendulum is rigged to swing back

In an article in August 2018, I argued that emerging political leaders, because of the unique socioeconomic reality in which they grew up, might be more likely to accept change and less likely to default to norms and practices pursued by their boomer predecessors.

A Long March to Brutalities

It could have been just another episode in the regular show of police and ruling party men merrily clamping down on the “disturbers of public peace” who love to play with people’s emotions with their pesky ideas and noisy chants of human rights abuses.

Death penalty minus political will to stop rape is just good optics

From harsh legal penalties to severe moral reprimands, from street protests and sit-ins to virtual seminars and teach-ins, from increasing mobilisation and visibilisation of pro-choice activists to critical interventions by state and non-state actors—nothing, and no one, seems to be able to deter the rapists or protect women and children.