January 28, 2020
The shift of ‘soft power’
Over the past three months, I have lost many nights of sleep, abandoned my favourite political TV programmes, and ignored household chores.
January 1, 2020
Happy 20/20
I am sitting at my desk, with a hot cup of tea, peering out at the foggy winter morning enveloping the placid Gulshan Lake.
December 16, 2019
Passage to freedom
Forty-eight years have elapsed since we overthrew the yoke of exploitation and oppression and gained our Independence, through blood, sweat, and tears.
December 4, 2019
The Age of Alternate Reality
Common sense tells us that life’s experiences should help us acquire a degree of certainty about most issues. However, I seem to be the exception to this conventional wisdom.
October 15, 2019
The ‘seditious heart’
I often wonder about the psyche and motivation of people who choose to resist unfairness, inequity and tyranny at a great personal cost. And I don’t mean luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr., but the unsung heroes who feel it their bounden duty to act in the public interest and ensure that future generations benefit from their selfless acts of moral valour.
September 22, 2019
Revisiting our social structures
In the midst of all the political chaos and confusion reigning in our world today, we are perhaps overlooking an important issue—the basic fibre of our social structure is going through a tectonic shift. One would have thought that, over time, class barriers would be
August 22, 2019
Seeing life anew
As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from the writing scene for about six months. No, I haven’t retired from column writing—rather it has been a forced hiatus. Forced by an eye condition that struck without any prior warning. The affliction that stole part of my right eyesight came stealthily and silently—a white fog refusing to be dislodged obstructed my vision.
January 24, 2019
When being wrong can feel right
I never imagined that most of the values and precepts I learned while growing up would become dated and rendered almost irrelevant during my lifetime. In particular, the lessons in humility that our parents and teachers taught us seem to have simply gone out of the window.
December 2, 2018
The Rise of Hate
In the “long 18th century” (1685-1815), European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment.
October 11, 2018
America's moment of self-reckoning?
The past week has been tumultuous and agonising for most Americans. A week of speculation, media hype, and political and personal