"Corona-virus can’t tame Bangladesh’s growth momentum”, declared a report issued by the Ministry of Finance of the country. Strong domestic demand fuelled by growth in the flow of remittance and increased public expenditure will counter any possible external shocks, according to the report, which was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office. In other words, the Prime Minister will receive a very rosy picture for the rest of the year, so far as the domestic economy is concerned.

It is not hard to detect the deep sense of remorse in the writer of the article, “Incubator of democracy or lessons to subvert it?”

Amidst the rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe, Bangladesh seems to be one of the least affected countries with only five identified cases as of March 15, 2020.

The coronavirus, now declared a pandemic by WHO, has created panic around the world, and Bangladesh is no exception. As soon as the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) confirmed the first cases of coronavirus in the country on March 8,

I have seen it on TV, read about it in newspapers, but never thought it would be this bad. I watched it from the deck of a launch, looking forward to a spectacular river cruise that our departmental picnic poster promised.

The US Federal Reserve in a statement on March 4 warned that the coronavirus outbreak, which has already disturbed travel and access to goods worldwide, could cause further disruptions in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally declared the COVID-19 outbreak a “pandemic”. With three confirmed cases of the latest strain of the coronavirus, aka COVID-19, diagnosed on March 7 by the Institute of Epidemiology,

As my daughter and I drove to the polling booth last week to vote at the Democratic Primaries in the United States, I asked: “So,

Recently, I wrote about how coronavirus (COVID-19), which is now on the verge of becoming a global pandemic, has provided a wake-up call for Bangladesh and its RMG industry.

The Climate Change Emergency has been declared first by the youth, led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement of school children striking every Friday to urge leaders to treat climate change as a truly global emergency.

As the novel coronavirus known as Covid-19 spreads rapidly across the world, we now face another dimension of the “globalisation and its discontents” argument.

Trending now are a winter holding at around twenty degrees Celsius, finishing office work in a traffic jam, private fogging to rid societies of mosquitoes (members of the Executive Committee not included), and a side job or business not only to make ends meet but for a wee bit of luxury, such as eating out.

With the number of coronavirus cases crossing 100,000 mark, the official death toll standing at—and forever climbing over—3,652 (live update, worldometers, March 8), and the US flashing 8.3 billion green bucks to shoo away the spread, the outbreak of COVID-19 is no longer a “told-you-not-to-have-that-bat-soup-or-fox-meat” gossip.

The campaign for International Women’s Day 2020 is #EachForEqual. This signifies how important it is for everyone to play a role in establishing women’s equality. An equal society is an empowered society.

It is now an admitted fact that in the treasury of the world’s great speeches, the historic March 7 speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman occupies a special place of honour and prominence.

At 92, Mahathir Mohamad, the world’s oldest serving president, came into the limelight recently, but for all the wrong reasons. On February 22, without any prior notice, Mahathir suddenly tendered his resignation as the prime minister of the country, less than two years into his tenure.

Abhijit Banerjee, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, made his mark with some early work on corruption in government.

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.

When we read about a woman being “gang-raped”, then raped again by her “rescuer” (The Daily Star, October 28, 2019), how long do we spend thinking about the unbelievable trauma this woman has gone through?

Never under-estimate the power of marketing and PR. At present, there is a huge disparity in the global apparel industry in terms of who is doing what with regard to sustainability. Some brands are doing a lot. Some brands are doing a little. Some brands are doing nothing at all.