OF MAGIC & MADNESS
Why does a six-day holiday feel too good to be true?
This is apparently the longest holiday that journalists have ever gotten in the history of Bangladesh’s newspaper industry.
Who will restrain prices in the month of restraint?
If the government really wants to control or bring down prices during Ramadan and afterwards, it must be willing to go after its 'own people.'
‘Will you be my Valentine?’ and other expensive offers
In the end, love is a personal matter and it should remain so, regardless of how it comes out on February 14 and in the days that follow.
Opinion / Word of the Election Year: Dummy
Politicians provided a steady supply of obnoxious, potentially title-winning examples
Opinion / Can BNP survive the pre-election meltdown?
BNP's retreat to the back foot amid mass arrests and convictions was as remarkable as it was rapid.
Voters without choice are just glorified dummies
You’ve already met the dummy candidates, aka independents. Now, meet dummy voters.
Polls schedule is not a cut-off point for dialogue
Without political reconciliations, we're headed for another violent, one-sided election
Who are these nameless, faceless arsonists?
These attacks are at once a political issue, a law enforcement issue, and a human rights issue.
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.
Dhaka, for all intents and purposes, is dead
In Dhaka, we don’t live anymore, we merely survive.
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.
