Unpacking 2017
Editor's Note / The turbulence we survived
The New Year always promises to bring new hope, new opportunities and new ways of looking at our reality. It also
Trailblazing through the digital world
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2017 and what it means for 2018
WITH no street agitations or unexpected turn of events, and with the ruling party's firm grip over the situation, 2017 was politically a relatively calm year. But it was neither uneventful nor inconsequential.
SPORTING RELIEF
The world seemed to be careening towards apocalypse at the end of 2017, at a time when keeping up with the news is a depressing endeavour.
THOSE WE'VE LOST
Member of the Parliament and Awami League's advisory council, Suranjit Sengupta was a veteran leader, senior politician, and spokesperson. He resigned in 2012 as second Railway Minister of Bangladesh.
Directors' Choice
Feedback: I remember two movies in particular that I watched in 2017 and found quite interesting, although both were made towards the end of 2016. As a director, I learned a lot from these movies in terms of cinematic language, screenplay, storytelling, and different film traditions and conventions.
Making social media safe for democracy
IN the run-up to multiple votes around the world in 2016, including the United Kingdom's Brexit vote and the United States presidential election, social media companies like Facebook and Twitter
Stealing the populists' clothes
TWO cheers for US President Donald Trump. Without him, the West would still regard populism as a problem unique to Central and Eastern Europe. Yet Trump's presidency is as clear a demonstration as there could be of the fact that populism is not merely a product of the alleged “immaturity” of post-communist countries.
A year of renewed climate commitments
FOR the growing share of the world's population that understands the existential threat posed by climate change, the beginning of 2017 brought a sense of trepidation. In fact, collective angst was already apparent at the 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, which had just started when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.
Creating our own language in film
FOR a director, completely objective analysis of cinema is difficult. So, I was in a dilemma when I sat down to write this piece for The Daily Star about Bangladeshi cinema, its language, the challenges and potentials.
Why Dhaka's liveability is only worsening
DHAKA, the capital of Bangladesh, and one of the fastest growing cities of the world, has been infamous for a while for being over-populated, traffic congested, waterlogged (urban flooding) and polluted (e.g. toxic waste, poor
Another brutal year for children
AS we look back at the previous year which saw an increase of violence against children we must take a vow to play our part to make 2018 a better year for children. It is really hard to drive away our frustration at our collective failure to protect our children from the various forms of abuse that they have to suffer on a regular basis.
How inequality works
Inequality has been named as a culprit in the populist incursions of 2016 and 2017. But what is inequality, and what role does it play in inhibiting or encouraging growth, or in undermining democracy? Does inequality kill, say, by driving people to suicide or to “deaths of despair”? Or is inequality a necessary evil that we must tolerate at certain levels?
