Badiuzzaman Bay

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This comment by Vladimir Lenin, describing the Bolshevik revolution over 100 years ago, serves as an apt metaphor for the journey Bangladesh has had since March 8, when the country confirmed its first Covid-19 case.

This week, in The Daily Star’s new interview series that aims to give readers an idea of what changes to expect in a post-Covid 19 world, Dr Quamrul Haider talks to Badiuzzaman Bay.

Great names are formed by great events. It’s a truism that applies as much to the leaders and revolutionaries as to the pundits and intellectuals.

Press freedom in Bangladesh has been in decline long before the coronavirus came to our shores.

Winter lasted a little longer than usual this year. Having grown used to shorter, barely cold seasons in recent years, it was something of a surprise to see a winter extending well into March.

Every day, long before dawn, before insanity grips Dhaka and all manners of chaos start swirling around us, certain parts of the capital fall into a familiar routine: alarms go off and shoes go on. A group of students are on their way to the university library.

If Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda is not your favourite go-to guy when you look for truths, he has only himself to blame.

If the heavens are kind this time and everything pans out as expected by the mayoral wannabes, a golden age for Dhaka is now within reach.

Catherine Masud is an American-born filmmaker and road safety activist. Until her late husband-director Tareque Masud’s death in a road crash in 2011, they worked together to produce numerous award-winning documentaries and features.

My deleted sentences are like the children I never had.

You see them every day. Clad in sarees or some other cheap, gaudy outfits, walking in groups along busy thoroughfares, in less affluent neighbourhoods, and marketplaces.

It’s been 10 days since Jahangirnagar University went into lockdown after the activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League attacked protesters demanding the

A small, upmarket café housed in what may seem to be a refitted basement is the setting for my interview with Martin Kämpchen, the German author, Tagore translator and journalist.

Mark Twain once famously said that truth is stranger than fiction. Truth’s ability to outperform fiction is limitless, not just in terms of strangeness, but also in the most outrageous, disgusting and horrifying way conceivable.

To say that Chhatra League is in crisis presupposes that Chhatra League, too, can be reduced to facing a crisis, a fact that would have been unthinkable even a few weeks ago.

Seeking clarity amidst chaos is something that most human beings do. But seeking chaos amidst clarity is a prerogative of the politicians.

This year’s World Teachers’ Day celebrates teachers with the theme “Young Teachers: The Future of the Profession”. How bright is the future of the profession in a country plagued by a dysfunctional education system, where teachers no longer enjoy the formidable reputation they once did? What went wrong?

An interesting debate has been swirling around the future trajectory of tourism in Bangladesh after two of its top officials were locked in a public duel of sorts over the legalisation of casino gambling.

First of all, this demonstrates the extent to which politicians can go to exploit an issue and the devastating effect that it may have. After the release of the final NRC in Assam, the number of the excluded came down to 1.9 million (an earlier list had excluded about 4 million).

Does the outpouring of anger and grief after some of the high-profile rape crimes in recent months signal a social awakening?