Can AI improve our budget implementation scenario?
On July 25 this year, the Prothom Alo English edition published a news item about a bridge being built somewhere on the outskirts of Dhaka that led to nowhere.
31 August 2021, 18:00 PM
Online education and artificial intelligence
As we all know, Covid-19 struck Wuhan on New Year's Eve in 2019, and the city embraced total lockdown. Soon, the rest of China and the world followed. But what many don't know is Chinese education never went into lockdown.
31 July 2021, 18:00 PM
After two decades of war, the US leaves an uncertain future for Afghans
June 2002. I was on my first visit to Kabul. People were trying to put together their lives with new hope. Kids seemed happy and curious. Some were walking to whatever remained of the schools. Some were playing on the streets, while others were curiously watching the foreigners.
18 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Can our engineering education prepare graduates for the industry?
How universities can better prepare graduates for the industry is a constant topic of debate. It will perhaps never end because the industry needs are changing rapidly, and the universities are constantly trying to adapt to such changes.
31 May 2021, 18:00 PM
Ethnic minorities’ baffling show of support for Suu Kyi: What does it indicate?
After Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest following the military coup, there was an outpouring of support shown to her by various ethnic groups in Myanmar,
1 April 2021, 18:00 PM
Suu Kyi is likely to win again, but will that bring about any real change?
It was a landslide victory in 2015 for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).
26 August 2020, 18:00 PM
Has Trump found a solution to America’s Afghan problem?
America’s recent peace agreement with the Talibans in Doha makes many ponder whether it has lost the war. However, before coming to such a conclusion, we should revisit the aims of this decades-old bloody conflict.
6 July 2020, 18:00 PM
William Dalrymple's 'The Anarchy': Risky business and the company that never left
The book starts with the origin of the word loot, a slang word for plunder. It was imported into the English language while the East India Company and its officers pillaged—for more than 100 years—Bengal, Mysore,
10 June 2020, 18:00 PM
Iran and the USA don’t have to be enemies
The contradict-ion couldn’t be more striking.
2 March 2020, 18:00 PM
‘The only constant in life is change’
On November 29, 2019, The Daily Star announced the demise of its Star Weekend magazine and the birth of Toggle, quoting Heraclitus as a justification, but without giving him due credit.
11 January 2020, 18:00 PM
Myanmar’s state of perpetual conflict
Report after report have confirmed the wave of appalling violence in Myanmar on its ethnic minorities, perpetrated by a well-trained, well-armed and state-sponsored organisation. Yet the world seems to be incapable of ending this horrifying situation, perhaps unprecedented since the Second World War. Why?
20 October 2019, 18:00 PM
Trump’s wish to buy Greenland
Donald Trump. Boris Johnson. Marine Le Pen. Norbert Hofer. Are they ignorant? Short-sighted? Populist?
29 August 2019, 18:00 PM
A priceless gem in Copenhagen
On a short trip to Copenhagen, my wife and I, having just visited the Little Mermaid and the Hans Christian Andersen museum, are wandering where to go next. Just then, by a sheer stroke of luck, someone at the tourist information centre casually mentions The
22 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Why Suu Kyi is silent on the Rohingya issue
Aung San Suu Kyi's inability to speak up for the Rohingya in Myanmar has been a riddle. The Western world had elevated her almost to the status of sainthood, only to find that she is actually a politician, happy to switch sides as convenient.
17 April 2019, 18:00 PM
Bangladesh: From a take-off stage to actual take-off
Budget implementation capacity of Bangladesh has been falling consistently for the last seven fiscal years, exposing poor capacity of government agencies, The Daily Star reported on June 4, 2018. Despite a sustained increase in GDP growth rate for over a decade, the implementing capacity has dropped from 97 percent in 2010-11 to a mere 78 percent in 2016-17, it further adds.
20 June 2018, 18:00 PM
Why liberal arts education matters
In the Vatican, there is a fresco by Raphael called “The School of Athens.” It depicts an imaginary congregation of many of the great Greek polymaths, philosophers, painters, sculptors, poets, and scientists—the very shapers of modern western civilisation.
28 January 2018, 18:00 PM
Rethinking our way forward
Recently, The Daily Star held a roundtable conference on how infrastructure development projects in Bangladesh can be better managed and the summary was published in the daily on December 12 which I read with interest.
29 December 2017, 18:00 PM