Low levels of testing are hampering our Covid response
It has been more than a year since Covid-19 was first detected in Bangladesh. Much has been, and continues to be, said about the country’s handling of the pandemic.
28 April 2021, 18:00 PM
Can quarantine be a solution in a country like Bangladesh?
The words “quarantine” and “isolation” have now become synonymous with the coronavirus outbreak. Social media has exploded with status updates,
21 March 2020, 18:00 PM
Coronavirus and the dark side of globalisation
The coronavirus outbreak—which seems straight out of the sci-fi thriller Contagion—has led to over 7,989 deaths and 198,736 cases worldwide. As we try to make sense out of truths that seem stranger than fiction, the WHO-declared pandemic has laid bare the fact that in an era where globalisation reigns supreme, infectious diseases no longer simply pose the risk of transnational movement of bacterial and viral infections.
18 March 2020, 18:00 PM
Why focusing on ‘rural development’ is a must
Post-WWII, Bangladesh, along with countries which had been freed from the shackles of colonisation and had gained their independence, embarked upon the journey of “development”.
15 February 2020, 18:00 PM
A recipe for a public health disaster
Going by numerous recent news reports, we have good reason to be worried about the state of food safety in the country.
8 July 2019, 18:00 PM
Development for whom?
A particular finding in the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) blows the illusion of GDP growth being the “be all and end all” of development into smithereens.
23 May 2019, 18:00 PM
Waiting to be heard
Contrary to popular belief, it's not entitlement or narcissism or laziness that defines millennials. If anything, it's probably a sense of disillusionment that's a defining characteristic of this generation.
20 April 2019, 18:00 PM
How can we make our buildings safe?
Defiance of the BNBC stems from the ways that it can provide immediate benefit to owners and often the users and the developers of buildings. For example, rules are violated to achieve maximum use of space when land itself is costly.
3 April 2019, 18:00 PM
Sagor and Rajon: Murder as public spectacle
I still remember the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when the news of the brutal killing of 13-year-old Rajon broke on social media two years ago. Is this real? How could they do this to a child? Why did the onlookers simply stand there?
30 September 2017, 18:00 PM
Darwin: The portal to Asia
Tucked in a remote corner at the tip of the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, lies a little known city called Darwin—first named in 1839 by John Lort Stokes after his former shipmate and evolutionist Charles Darwin.
28 September 2017, 18:00 PM
Suu Kyi's cowardly speech
Suu Kyi's speech was not only “disappointing” but also cowardly. It towed the typical line of “we have to look at both sides”, completely oblivious to the power dynamics at play: the national army versus a dispossessed population.
20 September 2017, 18:00 PM
Doklam standoff, Bhutan and its quest for greater freedom
Has anyone asked what Bhutan—the tiny kingdom hidden in the folds of the eastern Himalayas—has to say?
5 August 2017, 18:00 PM
The bus is indeed moving backwards
A Facebook post shared by a man named Rushad Faridi caught my eye recently. He shared an article with an intriguing title, which he had written for Prothom Alo. But it wasn't the article that grabbed everyone's attention at first. It was the fact that Faridi, a professor in the economics department at Dhaka University, was placed on forced leave less than a week after the article was published on July 7.
22 July 2017, 18:00 PM
Justice After Nuremberg
When the Nuremberg War Trial began more than 70 years ago, it marked a watershed moment in international law.
16 July 2017, 18:00 PM
The war that never ended
“The world watched through my camera [as] this soldier shot the boy in cold blood, and his life was not in any danger at all.
4 June 2017, 18:00 PM
The combined power of capital and philanthropy
"I grew up as a young girl in Bangladesh, a post-war country at the time ravished by famine, and saw everyone trying to do their part to rebuild the country."
30 May 2017, 18:00 PM
Ideological Struggles Within
There is a widely held belief that culture and religion are mutually exclusive entities. And herein lies the primary source of conflict.
21 May 2017, 18:00 PM
Work that doesn't exist on paper
It wasn't until 1972 that the term “informal sector” emerged in the development scene. Since then the phrase has continued to gain traction as a central theme in the development discourse.
30 April 2017, 18:00 PM
All rights reserved?
One of the earliest origins of intellectual property (IP) can be traced back to 500 BCE when the Greek city of Sybaris (in what is now southern Italy) granted its citizens exclusive rights for one year for “any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent”.
25 April 2017, 18:00 PM
A festivity of syncretic traditions
Pahela Baishakh is not only the country's largest secular festival but also part of a global celebration. It's part of a universal festivity of the New Year across different cultures and religions.
13 April 2017, 18:00 PM
Graffiti defaced: Are you seriously surprised?
Yesterday, when my Facebook newsfeed filled with photos of the besmirched wall paintings done by the students of the Institute of Fine Arts of Chittagong University as part of Pahela Baishakh festivities, I was not surprised.
13 April 2017, 12:36 PM
Our web privacy at stake
On March 28, the Bangladesh government approved the project titled “Cyber Threat Detection and Response” under which internet monitoring equipment will be installed by May of next year.
4 April 2017, 18:00 PM
The Rebel Eternal
With Independence Day only eight days away and World Poetry Day three days from now, the time couldn't be more fitting to honour one of the greatest political poets to have ever lived, Kazi Nazrul Islam. Here, we look back at the revolutionary poet who masterfully used poetry and prose as vehicles for political and social justice.
17 March 2017, 18:00 PM
Women in Science - Why are we still surprised?
In 2014, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the Fields Medal, considered the 'Nobel Prize of Math', for her contributions to the dynamic and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.
7 March 2017, 18:00 PM
What it means to be a citizen
What does it mean to be a 'citizen'? Does being a citizen simply mean having the right to live in one's birthplace, having the right to vote, and being accorded the formal recognition of basic rights and liberties?
28 February 2017, 18:00 PM
On the language of identity
Identity – an ambiguous term and the definition of which lacks conceptual clarity much like the term 'globalisation' itself which, many
20 February 2017, 18:00 PM
Prioritising our female migrant workers
The dehumanising plight of women migrant workers like Maksuda and Bithi is caused by this very lack of clear mechanisms of recruitment and a failure to delineate our conditions to ensure our workers' safety as the country-of-origin before we send our workers abroad.
31 January 2017, 18:00 PM
A path of 'principled pragmatism'
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star, Professor Shafiqul Islam, Director, Water Diplomacy Program, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, talks to Nahela Nowshin about the challenges of water governance.
27 January 2017, 18:00 PM