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.
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.
