Editor's Pick | The Daily Star

  • A case of laudable progress

    The 2018 update on the global human development indices and indicators was released on September 14. Covering 189 countries of the world, the update has revealed for these countries the levels of human development in different dimensions, their progress, the inequalities in human development achievements and the extent and nature of deprivations.

  • Living in fear, uncertainty

    Tens of thousands of foreign workers in Malaysia have been living in fear and uncertainty since the government began a massive crackdown on undocumented foreign workers on July 1 following the end of a over two-year rehiring programme

  • Evicted from Rakhine, trafficked in Cox's Bazar

    "How will you write my story? What is the use of writing my story? You can't understand my sufferings.

  • What is holding us back?

    With most public universities already fixing dates for admission tests after the publication of this year's HSC examination results, the battle of admission seekers for getting a seat at their desired university is about to begin.

  • Defining Tajuddin's place in history

    Tajuddin Ahmad was the one who filled a crucial void in leadership during Bangladesh's most important nine months in 1971 after Bangabandhu had been taken prisoner by the Pakistani army.

  • Solving our waterlogging woes

    Iqbal Habib, Member Secretary, Urbanisation & Governance Programme, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), talks to Naznin Tithi of The Daily Star about why lack of coordination among the agencies concerned is the main barrier to solving Dhaka's waterlogging problem and how this issue should be addressed.

  • The new weapon of war in digital Bangladesh

    “The presence of the photos of these two whores, Umme Habiba Benojir and Shamima Binte Rahman, on my newsfeed has made my blood boil with anger. I wish I could go back to the 80s when I was a part of the Chhatra League. Dear current generation, please do your duty. Please finish the job within one to two days. Don't compel half-centurions like us to come to the ground.”

  • Truth is not a smear campaign

    On July 28, 2016, The Daily Star reported the release of the International Telecommunication Union's ICT Development Index that showed that Bangladesh had the lowest Internet penetration in South Asia, with just 14.40 percent of the population having connectivity to Internet.

  • Why women migrant workers are compelled to come back

    From the human rights perspective, the treatment received by thousands of Bangladeshi female workers at the hands of their employers constitutes a grave violation of their rights. Can a human being work for 17–18 hours tirelessly without any day-off—that too at very low wages?

  • The bigger picture behind student grievances

    With the “world watching” Bangladesh in appreciation for its brave choice to defend the rights of the Rohingya refugees and stand up for the more honourable human values, a most disgraceful display of inhumanity had to bring our nation back down to earth.

  • The struggle to return home

    In the last three years, more than 2000 Bengalis in Pakistan's Karachi have applied for Travel Permits (TP) to return to Bangladesh. A TP is equivalent to a one-time passport, which the Bangladesh Embassy provides to individuals it believes belong to Bangladesh.

  • Inside the HEV Epidemic

    An unchecked outbreak of Hepatitis E puts millions at risk in Chittagong. More than 2.5 million people in Chittagong are exposed to an HEV outbreak—and no one's doing anything to stop it.

  • “Anti-drug drive” threatens development

    One of the most densely populated countries in the world, Bangladesh faces formidable challenges to eradicate poverty and provide sustainable development to its communities. Yet the country has been successful in the past decade in rising to these challenges.

  • Well done, Sir!

    There are iconic pictures that sometimes capture an age, define a moment in history, exemplify beauty, tragedy, or joy, in ways otherwise impossible to evoke. Who can forget the naked, screaming Vietnamese girl fleeing the napalm attack on her village in 1972; the Chinese man standing in lonely defiance in front of a column of tanks at the Tiananmen Square in 1989; the Times Square kiss; or the raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima, heralding the end of WWII?

  • Cinema, Consciousness, and Censorship

    Cinema is transformative—it inspires, evokes, and agitates beyond its entertainment value. For this reason, cinema becomes vulnerable at the hands of regimes wishing to control ideas being consumed by the public.

  • The race between 'development' and 'justice'

    A politician for nearly four decades, Hasan Uddin Sarkar, the opposition candidate in the Gazipur mayoral election, is well aware of the odds against him.

  • Bangladesh women's cricket team

    We cannot continue to neglect Bangladesh women's cricket

    USD 66,600 or approximately Tk 56 lakh—that is the difference between the yearly salary of the highest graded women cricketers of India and Bangladesh. Indian cricketers receive a daily payment, for their participation in domestic cricket, of Rs 12,500. Bangladesh's cricketers, on the other hand, get paid Tk 600 as match allowance in domestic leagues. That is basically what cricketers who aren't in the national contract play for.

  • Prioritising effective social safety net projects

    The idea of the universal pension scheme is new, but it's just a good idea. With our bureaucratic inefficiency, it's highly unlikely that we would be able to make headway in this regard in the near future.

  • Budget should initiate more investment in human resources

    Syed Manzoorul Islam, retired professor of Dhaka University, who is currently teaching at ULAB and is a member of the board of trustees at Transparency International Bangladesh, talks to Eresh Omar Jamal about the latest proposed budgetary allocation to the education sector and its underlying implications.

  • A Rohingya's perspective

    Since August last year, the world has witnessed how hundreds of thousands of desperate Rohingyas have fled across the border into Bangladesh, bringing with them tales of unimaginable horror.

  • The Ghost of Marx

    A ghost is haunting the global capitalist elites—the ghost of Karl Marx.

  • Why Dhaka may disappear one day, like Mohenjo Daro

    This was Samayeen Cooper's maiden visit to the country of his grandparents, from his mother's side. He quickly glanced at his watch: 5:37 PM local time, December 14, 2044!

  • anti-drug war

    Efficacy of the anti-drug war

    “Why don't you tell the truth?

  • Manik Bandopadhyay: A Hunger Artist

    Meet Manik Bandopadhyay— wounded by the critics who had glanced at the title of his novel to dismiss it as fatalist or feudalist. Manik's tongue-in-cheek reply shows that readership is the real mandate that an author needs; engagement with the society is the real commitment that an author desires.

  • History in Ruins

    Cultural heritage refers to the traditions, values, beliefs, and sense of belonging in a community. It's the shared bond that helps shape our identity. It's the material things, and the tangible and intangible both.

  • Satyajit Ray 97th Birth Anniversary

    The Craft of Ray's Cinema

    The nature of filmmaking in the 1930s and '40s was quite interesting. It was a time when movies in the Indian subcontinent were entirely dependent on music. A single feature length super hit movie sometimes contained even 60 to 70 songs.

  • Karl Marx in Bangladesh, Part 2

    Did Maulana Bhashani—the famous Red Maulana—ever read Marx? I recently asked this question to a prominent biographer of Bhashani—Syed Abul Maksud. His answer was, “Probably not.”

  • Karl Marx in Bangladesh, Part 1

    No I am not talking about my encounter with the ghost of Karl Marx in Bangladesh. If you are interested in such stories you should read Howard Zinn's Marx in Soho or Sumonto Bandyopadhyay's Bhuture Molakat (Ghostly Encounter)—two hilarious and, at the same time, intellectually erudite accounts of meeting the ghost of Marx in New York and Kolkata, respectively. Rather, what I am going to narrate here is

  • Surviving in a narrowing space

    It is hardly a new phenomenon to see how governments, especially in South Asia, claiming to be democratic to suit their convenience, become anything but that when it comes to dissenting views. Curbing press freedom, in particular, will always become the target for governments that have succumbed to insecurities of their own creation. Corruption of leaders or their cronies seems to be the topmost reason for state paranoia of the media which is seen as a thorn in the flesh rather than an essential component of democratic maturity.

  • We are poor but so many

    That's the title of a book published in 2005, by an Indian writer who has dedicated her life to fighting for labour rights and women's

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