Amitava Kar

Are poverty and persecution the only reasons why we have seen so many people desperately trying to leave the country on boats?

It seems a measure of how badly things have gone out of hand that Montu Sardar peddles lemonade beneath a foot bridge, 5 Taka a glass, amid the piercing horns of the line of traffic he is blocking.

Dr Sanchita Banerjee Saxena shares with Amitava Kar of THE DAILY STAR some views on the impact of US trade policy on Bangladesh and the role of interest groups in policymaking. Dr Saxena is the executive director of the Institute for South Asia Studies (ISAS) at the University of California at Berkeley, USA and the director of the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies. She is the author of Made in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka: The Labor Behind the Global Garment and Textiles Industries (2014, Cambria Press).

The hackneyed expression “strictly business” would have us believe that business, at its core, is meant to be devoid of emotion.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Peter Barcroft, Director of the Peace and Democracy Programme of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), talks to Amitava Kar about better regulating small arms and light weapon transfers worldwide.

The international community's response to the biggest movement of refugees and migrants in Europe since the aftermath of World War II is inadequate and flawed.

His ability to get away with aggressiveness, insults, lies, and threats are exactly the attributes that attract his audience to him.

Vrinda Grover, human rights lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and advocate for women's rights, talks to Amitava Kar of The Daily Star about the hurdles people of this region face seeking justice and how to possibly overcome them. Vrinda Grover was one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2013.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Robert D. Watkins, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Bangladesh talks to Amitava Kar about some development ideas for Bangladesh.

With a constitution that granted it sweeping powers and a compliant parliament, the generals are now presiding over a Potemkin democracy.

Dr Mohammad Mohabbat Khan talks to Amitava Kar about the importance of a professional, efficient civil service.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, the President of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, a top ranked think tank and one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people, shares with Amitava Kar the idea of sharpening the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) targets to a much smarter, more effective list.

The way basic healthcare is provided to some of the most impoverished people in Bangladesh changed forever in the year 2002. That’s

Jon Moussally MD, MPH, President and co-founder of TraumaLink talks to Amitava Kar about the importance of emergency medical services for victims of car crashes.

I think a euphemism is a kind of lie, and the lies peoples and countries tell themselves are revealing. Describing Rohingya migrants as “boat people” is disturbing and unacceptable to me.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Dr. Md. Ziaur Rahman, Professor and Chairman of Department of Criminology at the University of Dhaka talks to Amitava Kar about the trends of crime and what needs to be done.

I believe the division between social and conventional business is artificial and antiquated. All businesses are done by people and for people. All businesses are, therefore, social.

Established in 1957 in the then Pakistan, the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) is an autonomous, public organisation

Perhaps that's one of the “root causes” why so many migrants from poor countries end up dead in the unforgiving seas trying to get to greener pastures.

YOUR commence-ment speaker deals with the big ideas: follow your passion, serve your community, know thyself.