November 6, 2016
A requiem for the Sundarbans
Why is the Bangladesh government so determined to go ahead with a project that every sane-minded person not affiliated with the government thinks will do more harm than good? In September, I put this question to the members of the delegation accompanying Prime Minister Hasina who was in New York for the annual UN General Assembly. One of them, speaking on behalf of the group, replied with a counter question: Do you think our Prime Minister would do something that would go against our national interest?
October 24, 2016
Exercise in democracy or “Bolirkhela”?
Imagine two heavyset men in the middle of a mud pool lunging at each other. They huff and puff, throw up their arms in the air screaming obscenities – some in earnest, some to stir their supporters.
September 8, 2016
United Nations and the “i” word
Shashi Tharoor, my former boss at the United Nations, was - and perhaps still is - a fiery defender of the United Nations. He was once asked by a BBC interviewer how did the UN feel about the “i” word, i for irrelevant? Mr. Tharoor, without missing a heartbeat, replied, “Oh, I think the 'i' word for us is actually 'indispensable.'”
August 22, 2016
A double murder in New York
There was nothing distinctive about Maulana Alauddin Akonji and his associate Tara Uddin, except their Islamic garb and flowing beard.
August 8, 2016
Why Donald Trump scares me
Donald Trump has variously been described as “dangerous,” “fraud,” “unhinged,” “racist,” “mentally unbalanced” and “outright nuts.” Vanity Fair magazine's Mark Bowden summed up these epithets in one sentence in a slightly more charitable manner:
July 28, 2016
Remembering Sydney Schanberg
Bangladesh's war of independence had many unlikely heroes, some of whom lived outside of Bangladesh and had no formal connection with the country and its people. Sydney Schanberg, an American journalist working for The New York Times (NYT), was one of them.
July 19, 2016
What more could we have done?
My plane touched down at Dhaka airport at about the time when the joint security operation against terrorists at Gulshan's Holey
June 16, 2016
The Orlando massacre and the “Muslim factor”
When I first saw the news flash scrolling at the bottom of my TV screen, my first thought was, please God, not another Muslim!
June 8, 2016
Ali and the power of dissent
On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali, just 25 years of age, stood at the Houston Military Recruiting Office and said he won’t go to Vietnam. “I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong, no Vietcong ever called me nigger,” he said and defiantly courted arrest.
May 10, 2016
Silent death, unrecognised
Wednesday, May 4, was a great day for eight-year-old Mari Copeny. At her request, President Obama visited Flint, her home town in Michigan.