THE MIDDLE PATH
Adieu, AB
AB is no more. The nation is in his debt, and there's nothing we can do about it. There are murmured demands for some sort of a national tribute or recognition. If you ask me, a man, who has won over hearts, has no use for medals.
No merit in quotas
Anyone who has played “alley cricket” will know that it has its own rules: e.g. two “chiefs” get to select players in tandem, and (s)he who sends the ball over the wall must fetch it. Another such rule is that the owner of the bat will have an automatic place on the team. This last provision is an everyday example of a “quota system” where able performers are replaced by those wielding power over the selection process.
We have secret ties with 'many' Arab states
An Israeli cabinet minister said on Sunday that Israel had covert ties with "many" Arab and Muslim states but was
Rohingyas and the cost of kindness
It is certain that the present Rohingya sensation will soon die down, and be replaced in public memory by something far more banal.
Silence Of Friends: Activism in the Modern Era
Social media has opened floodgates of unexamined causes and unstoppable rebels. With the license to post/share anything and zero accountability, young men and women have taken to protests and activism over anything and everything.
Social ripples of rape
When alleged rapist Shafat Ahmed and accomplice Shadman Sakif were arrested, and the former's father brought under investigation, I had decided not to write about the rape incident that took place in a hotel in Banani.
An idea whose time has come
A great example of citizens failing to arrest political devolution is how a mediocre businessman – with a bad toupée, vocabulary of a fifth grader and freakishly small hands – danced his way to the American presidency.
An Unwanted People
The International Community seems to be unable, if not unwilling, to adequately respond to the recent escalation in Rohingya persecution. Long before this crackdown, apartheid conditions prevailed for the Muslim minority.
A Reasonable Vice
A former family chauffeur was recently suspended from his beloved 'government job'.
Can climate gather steam?
When a car spontaneously caught fire in Dhaka last week, allegedly from a heated engine, social media comments invoked the ongoing heat-spell.
Matrix of Biometrics
The man was up against a cave wall, holding his freshly ground and moistened haematite pigment in a coconut shell. He had spent the morning painting two Babirusas (pig-deer) with the chewed, bristly end of a twig. It was a hot day in Borneo; the forest breeze did not reach inside the cave. He was about to wipe the sweat off his brow, when the sight of his arm gave him an idea. He placed his hand against the cave wall and blew paint all over it, leaving an unmistakable imprint on the side of the wall. Little did he know that 40,000 years later – his work of art would dethrone European caves as the earliest instance of human creativity. Unknowingly, he had also become one of the first, deliberate users of biometric information.
The Laws of Inertia
In 1988, Ershad's predictably dictator-esque declaration of a state religion led to the formation of the Committee to Resist Despotism
The Strongman returns
It should be no surprise to us that the political 'strongman' has resurged. The very word evokes images of a bare-bodied Vladimir...
The land of scared ideas
Sixty or seventy years back, higher education for the people of Bengal was a rare commodity. Racial and socioeconomic barriers held
A Democracy of Crisis
Psychologists have suggested that humans have a natural preference for negative news, the public experience of which they enjoy via mass media. The reason is not necessarily 'schadenfreude' or secret pleasure derived out of other people's misery.
Collateral of War and Peace
For Bangladesh's global image, January 2016 was not a good month. Allegations of sexual abuse by Bangladeshi peacekeepers
To burn a mockingbird
It was a windy August day, 1877 C.E. A young, darkish and mostly unimpressive youth was at Nulo Gopal's door...
Bangladesh at Bloggerheads
Like many Bangladeshis, I started concentrating on and paying closer attention to blogging from 2013. February 2013, to be precise.
