Badiuzzaman Bay

“Digital Bangladesh” continues to be a central plank of the ruling Awami League, despite the failure of its techno-utopian Vision 2021.

Here’s an image that will likely be seared into our memory forever: a teacher being forced to wear a garland of shoes around his neck.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Dhaka, we don’t live anymore, we merely survive.

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.

If you think the social media tendency to obsess over trivial matters is problematic, be sure to highlight what’s causing it.

Apparently, it does. According to the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). And according to Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud.

In his first media briefing on February 28, 2022, the newly sworn-in Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal ticked almost all the right boxes.

Let me begin with the story of a thought experiment. I did this experiment with a concept known as perspective-taking.

For the government, the timing of the Sinha murder verdict on January 31 couldn’t have been worse, with increasing global scrutiny following a US sanction on RAB over allegations of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings.

A lot has changed since the start of the pandemic. For many of us, it has come to instantiate the kind of epoch-making events that upend not just life but also perspectives, leaving a profound mark on the civilisation. As a writer and thinker, what has it altered or reinforced about your view of our society?

In your long illustrious career, you’ve written extensively on many issues, but I find your enduring interest in poverty, rights and justice fascinating. Has there been any personal motivation for pursuing what has been your lifelong crusade against the forces feeding off people’s sufferings?

What is the picture that flashes through your mind when someone talks of social classes? A reader of The Guardian newspaper once made an interesting albeit highly generalised observation.

A dramatic turn of events since the March 17 attack on Hindu villagers in Sunamganj’s Shalla Upazila has been reshaping the narrative on the culpability of potential actors and, by extension, the politics of communal violence in Bangladesh.

Amanullah is a former Director General of Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB) and former Chief Editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS).