OF MAGIC & MADNESS

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.
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.
We must confront organised violence with organised love

What does it mean to be nonviolent in a world full of horror and chaos, not to mention weapons and instruments of every kind created to inflict pain?
A criminal bucket list: having fools as bosses

Stories of corruption no longer produce the same shock they once did.
We must save the press before coronavirus sinks it

In April, British journalist and author Susie Boniface, in an article for Mirror Online, asked her readers to take a moment to imagine a world in which there is no journalism.
Legacy of Covid-19: The good, the bad and the messy

No, the pandemic is not over—far from it, actually, despite what the ministers might tell you—although at times it does feel like we’ve reached the end.
The Art of Being Tajuddin Ahmad

Nearly half a century after the 1971 War of Liberation, it is perhaps difficult to produce or come across startlingly original ideas about Tajuddin Ahmad.
The ministry of utmost disappointment

The call for defunding police in the US, after the death of George Floyd in police brutality, is one of the most striking messages coming out of what is perhaps the largest civil movement in US history.
My father was an undocumented migrant worker. People like him don’t deserve your scorn

Not long ago, I was watching a webinar on the plight of returning migrant workers streamed live on Facebook by The Daily Star.
End of state-owned jute mills: why close when you can reform?

So it’s official now. The government is going to shut down all 25 state-owned jute mills operated by Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) and lay off about 25,000 workers involved with them.
How about leaving some space for ordinary patients?

In 1883, the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet about the virtues of diversity and inclusion.
100 DAYS OF COVID-19: How did we fail so miserably in handling it?

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This comment by Vladimir Lenin, describing the Bolshevik revolution over 100 years ago, serves as an apt metaphor for the journey Bangladesh has had since March 8, when the country confirmed its first Covid-19 case.
Blocking media access during Covid-19

Press freedom in Bangladesh has been in decline long before the coronavirus came to our shores.
Hello from Humanity

Winter lasted a little longer than usual this year. Having grown used to shorter, barely cold seasons in recent years, it was something of a surprise to see a winter extending well into March.
Opinion: BCS & Other Drugs

Every day, long before dawn, before insanity grips Dhaka and all manners of chaos start swirling around us, certain parts of the capital fall into a familiar routine: alarms go off and shoes go on. A group of students are on their way to the university library.
The Accidental Truthteller

If Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda is not your favourite go-to guy when you look for truths, he has only himself to blame.
I’ve no idea who these candidates are, but they surely sell hard

If the heavens are kind this time and everything pans out as expected by the mayoral wannabes, a golden age for Dhaka is now within reach.
An ode to my deleted sentences

My deleted sentences are like the children I never had.
Time to change our anti-Hijra bias

You see them every day. Clad in sarees or some other cheap, gaudy outfits, walking in groups along busy thoroughfares, in less affluent neighbourhoods, and marketplaces.
Time for a course correction in JU

It’s been 10 days since Jahangirnagar University went into lockdown after the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League attacked protesters demanding the
The ‘crazily courageous’ world of a Tagore devotee

A small, upmarket café housed in what may seem to be a refitted basement is the setting for my interview with Martin Kämpchen, the German author, Tagore translator and journalist.
Why this murderous rage?

Mark Twain once famously said that truth is stranger than fiction. Truth’s ability to outperform fiction is limitless, not just in terms of strangeness, but also in the most outrageous, disgusting and horrifying way conceivable.
Ban on Student Politics: Buet has launched the call. Other universities should follow.

To say that Chhatra League is in crisis presupposes that Chhatra League, too, can be reduced to facing a crisis, a fact that would have been unthinkable even a few weeks ago.