OF MAGIC & MADNESS
Road safety, transport politics, and a curious policy U-turn
The latest policy rollover on unfit vehicles seems to be the result of our policymakers remembering that they have interests to protect.
A Lunch Date Gone Wrong
The apparent hospitality offered to BNP leaders Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and Amanullah Aman has caused reactions both funny and speculative.
A nation off-guard: Why is dengue still a non-issue?
Can we respond to a public health crisis with the same urgency as the crisis over our electoral future?
Books and bureaucrats are a dangerous mix
Few people are perhaps aware that there is a specific government institution responsible for overseeing non-government libraries.
Sacred Corruption: The Unqualified and The Unscrupulous
Corruption in hajj management has come to the limelight after the publication of two reports
World Environment Day / Living in the land of dying rivers
What's happening to our rivers is not driven just by necessity, but also greed, a general disregard for the sanctity of life, and a reckless can-do-ism.
Is there a Bangalee way to celebrate Pahela Baishakh?
The “Bangalee way” in the sense of a single, linear way is a myth at best, and nationalist propaganda at worst.
In times of crisis, journalists must double down on facts
Facts, once the prerogative of the media, used to be sacred. Now, they are just fodder in an increasingly hostile war of narratives.
EC’s big nothing: From a crowning moment to a humbling experience
Now that the Cumilla City Corporation (CCC) election is over and everything there was to see and hear has been seen and heard, we need to address the elephant in the room.
And the Nobel Prize for Violence Goes to…
No, silly, there is no such prize for violence. That’s just a conversation starter. After all, what better way to invoke the mighty Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) than with a nod to violence?
Mega projects, mega dreams: But where is that omelette the government promised us?
The pitfall of measuring development based on macrodata is that it shows the big picture, but fails to account for development achieved, if at all, on a micro/personal level.
Cumilla polls, a litmus test for EC, and the shadow of drugs
For a party so image-conscious and so demanding of "clean image" from its candidates, Awami League surely knows how to make a muck of things and draw unflattering attention.
If justice had a face now, it would be of victims wronged twice
The idea of a justice system hinges on people’s faith in its ability to offer fair solutions. So justice, as the saying goes, should not only be done, but be seen to be done as well, so that people’s faith in it is kept intact.
Hankering for rural contact? Pahela Baishakh isn’t the answer
It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a Pahela Baishakh in the middle of Ramadan. The convergence of the two occasions, not necessarily a clash of ideologies, begs appreciation of life in its many nuances and complexities.
Ferry disasters: Let’s not sugarcoat institutional murders
It’s like a scene from a Stephen King movie: a small passenger vessel being “devoured” by a cargo ship about 20 times its size.
No, we were already pathetic before Sunny Leone came
If you think the social media tendency to obsess over trivial matters is problematic, be sure to highlight what’s causing it.
If my buying capacity triples and I don’t know it, does it still count?
Apparently, it does. According to the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). And according to Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud.
