Like any other developing nation, Bangladesh puts a lot of emphasis on foreign direct investment (FDI) as a vehicle of growth for jobs, technical know-how and gross domestic product (GDP).

Nowadays while meeting someone after a lapse of a few months, and with a gap in updated information, following the customary exchanges there is hesitation to pop the question, “How is the wife?”

The recent protests in Egypt, sparked by the allegation of financial misappropriations by a government contractor against the country’s current president and former army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have died down almost as soon as they came to life.

When things hit rock bottom humans have a tendency to find ways to laugh at them. It is related to that ambivalence of a bizarre event when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As Houthi drones strike Aramco oil refineries in Saudi Arabia, the world holds its breath. For the Houthis (reminds me of the nineties band, Hootie and the “Blow” Fish) are backed by Iran which in turn may lead to Operation Desert Stormy Daniels. But if president

In most countries in the world, barring a few, poverty appears to be a dirty word. Even in rich countries such as the USA and UK, it is difficult to find any reliable statistics on the existence of poverty, the level of poverty, or a headcount of poor people. It has recently

Back from the UNGA. In the last 5 months and 10 days that I have been serving as president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, my brain has been on an overdrive.

Last week in New York, the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) Antonia Guitteres held a Global Action Summit where he invited world leaders from selected countries only to come with “plans not speeches” to raise the level of ambition to tackle climate change.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its latest warning saying that the world’s oceans are rising twice as fast as they did in the last century due to fast-disappearing ice-sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland.

It’s been more than three years that the Brexit drama is being enacted in Britain—dividing the country, its political parties and the parliament.

Population density in cities like Dhaka and Chattogram is daunting.

Famed for his Moder Garob, Moder Aasha, a-mori Bangla Bhaasha, poet, educationist and lawyer Atul Prasad is long gone.

What we have wit-nessed over the last week, namely, the “discovery” of a large number of casinos, is another instance of the prevalent corruption in, and of, our society. While we have often heard the prime minister expressing her resolve to make the country

We go gambling in a rickshaw, dreaming of returning in a fifty lakh Taka car and end up returning in a one crore taka jalopy of a bus.

Bangladesh is still reeling from the worst dengue outbreak in its history, even though the initial shock has passed.

At some of the conferences on Bangladesh held in the USA, particularly at Harvard University, I have noticed that introductory speeches often mention Henry Kissinger and his infamous remark about Bangladesh being a “basket case” or “bottomless basket”.

We have known about the denial of climate change by president Trump of the United States and that he has decided to withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement and is also actively undermining efforts in the US to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

It is no secret that people in general share a common perception that corruption in the country has gone off the rails to the point of becoming nearly unbearable. While high corruption, mainly facilitated by some members of the ruling party of the day, has been a

It is amazing that the United States and Iran have maintained an extremely bellicose relation for the past four decades, much to the anxiety of nations of the Middle East. It all began when the Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed under Imam Ayatollah Ruhollah

In 1994, the country had around half a dozen public universities and zero private ones. A quarter of a century later, we now have 135 universities—a large majority of which are private. This growth in the number of tertiary-level educational institutions is certainly a