Jackfruit remains a vastly underutilised resource in our food system

The Daily Star (TDS): What inspired you to begin interviewing people living on the streets?

In the heart of Moulvibazar’s Sreemangal upazila, inside the Bormachhara Tea Garden, a language is quietly slipping into oblivion.

“September 21, 1945, that was the night I died.”

‘We are surviving by fighting the river’s current,’ said Morjina Khatun, 50, of Katmarchar village in Koyra upazila of Khulna district, wiping away tears. Morjina Begum’s struggle began after her husband Nurul Islam died in 2015. Natural hazards have made her struggle even more difficult.

The Daily Star (TDS): What is the current status of the Labour Reform Commission and its activities?

Once a staple of every morning in cities across Bangladesh, the unmistakable caw of the crow is now becoming a rare sound.

The gig economy is rapidly reshaping urban life, yet digital labour platforms fail to provide adequate support to the workers who keep this economy running.

A year has passed since the country erupted in protests over the quota-reform movement — a wave of demonstrations that soon snowballed into a nationwide uprising.

In the shadows of booming remittance flows and the quiet resilience of Bangladesh’s labour diaspora, a disturbing reality persists: numerous Bangladeshi female migrant workers, particularly those employed as domestic help in Gulf countries, are returning home in coffins.

I remember—it was late afternoon, the sun leaning westward. From a distance, a soft yet resolute melody drifted through the air. I was just a boy then, curious and drawn by the sound. I approached quietly.

As the climate crisis worsens, its effects in Bangladesh are becoming increasingly visible and destructive.

Under the vast skies of northern Bangladesh, in the corners of Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangpur, and the hillier terrains of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, lives a vibrant community whose roots run deep into the soil and soul of the region—the Oraons.

When the traditional haor song Lechur Baganey (“In the litchi orchard…”) was repurposed as an “item song” in a recent Bengali film, it sparked an outpouring of debate among music lovers and across social media platforms.

Tucked away beside a mosque in the quiet village of Tekani in Rangpur’s Mithapukur upazila stands a tree that once changed the course of an entire region’s agricultural history.

In the middle of Farmgate’s frantic rush, where buses roar and buildings crowd the sky, a quiet miracle unfolds each day.

In the lowlands of northern Bangladesh, where the Brahmaputra weaves its ancient path and songs echo across open fields, a quiet fight to preserve cultural memory is underway.

Jaya and Sharmin—a film produced by Jaya Ahsan—is a quiet reminder of who we were and still are, five years after the pandemic struck.  In this quiet, haunting two-woman film, the pandemic is never centerstage—rather the film avoids its dramatization. There are no sirens, no scenes of hospital chaos, no feverish handheld camera work. Instead, the film offers what most pandemic stories avoid: the internal climate of a shared household. Time slows. Fear settles. News flits across the TV, unnoticed. Through understated rhythm, the film accomplishes something powerful—it keeps the focus on the emotional, relational toll of confinement, rather than its spectacle.

Dr Rebecca Prentice, Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Development at the University of Sussex, has studied garment workers’ health and labour rights for over two decades.

When Subahdar of Bengal, Islam Khan Chishti, entered Dhaka in 1608 or 1610, he was accompanied by a diverse group of North and North-West Indians, Afghans, Iranians, Arabs, and other foreign Muslims and Hindus.