Perhaps it is no coincidence that World Cup Football is not on a leap year. For this is the time when our hearts, especially those in Bangladesh, leap not only a beat, but beat in beats to see the favourites beat the favourites of the opponents. Even on December 16, do we not see so many flags as we see during this time—not those of Bangladesh's.

As one of the most widely watched human activity, soccer's World Cup Championship unleashes raw competition between countries, raising emotions that cover almost every stripe we know and triggering nationalism of even a guttural kind.

It is a pity that a student organisation with a long democratic tradition has come to be seen as a synonym for violence, tender-grabbing, extortion and such like culpable acts.

Democracy is, by far, the most acclaimed historical form of government. It not only allows representation of all groups, but also permits every adult to exercise complete sovereignty at the polling booth. There might be nuances and variances here or there, particularly in the preceding campaigns and subsequent outcomes, but we have, by and large, managed to live with our differences, converse with adversaries, and bite the bullet so democracy strengthens itself.

At the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held last December under the presidency of the prime minister of Fiji, a new feature called the Talanoa Dialogue was introduced.

Humanity is supposed to have progressed. A Harvard University professor, Steven Pinker, argues in favour of it in his new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. On maximum standards of well-being, we are apparently faring way better than we did ever before.

I went to Chattagram to celebrate Eid with my family. It took me two hours and a half to reach home from the city's Shah Amanat International Airport.

The share of value-added tax (VAT) in the national exchequer has continuously been creeping up ever since its introduction more than 27 years ago, and has increased in recent years to the point where it is the single biggest slice of revenue collections by the government.

Although the concept of confront-terrorism and related strategies have a long global history, the attack at the Holey Artisan Café on July 1, 2016 made counter-terrorism (CT) a topic of public discourse in Bangladesh.

Gideon Rose made an astute observation in editing the May/June 2018 Foreign Affairs cover story on the current “democratic regression”. “We have seen this movie before,” he quoted a Latin friend of his on the concurrent predicament, “just never in English.”

The US Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Trump's travel ban, infamously known as the “Muslim Ban”, will have far reaching impacts, both domestic and international.

The trade war started by Trump could be seen as him keeping his election promise of renegotiating US trade relations with the world.

“An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain—the equality of all men.”

To this writer the expression “extra-judicial killing” is an apt illustration of the term “oxymoron”— that is, words put together which contradict each other. The expression has most likely been coined by journalists, and perhaps social scientists and rights activists, and curiously is not found in the legal lexicon. One could ask if there is actually anything like a judicial killing and if not, how could there be sense or meaning in the expression “extra-judicial killing”?

British newspaper, The Telegraph, recently reported on Bangladesh's quadrennial FIFA World Cup frenzy this way: “Rival supporters of Argentina's Lionel Messi and Brazil's Neymar fought with machetes in the town of Bandar. One man and his son were critically wounded in the incident, according to police reports.”

The Myanmar junta, under the façade of a democratically installed government headed by a titular political icon Aung San Suu Kyi, has been carrying out a campaign of brutal ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslim minority in its Rakhine province with complete impunity even though the world community is keenly aware of the atrocities and flagrant human rights

Henry Kissinger did not mince his words. As one of the most erudite commentators of global power rivalry, he was truly jolted to see the computer game, Go, a prototype of the more mesmerising AlphaGo game, capable of making strategic decisions far faster than human beings, and predicting the winner more accurately.

Turkey's strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is crisscrossing the globe to muster the support of the electorate in the forthcoming presidential and general elections on June 24.

I select seats 61A and 61B aboard the Boeing 777-200ER for myself and my only other travel companion, my 13-year-old. These are the poor man's business class seats—two seats next to the window and the aisle in the otherwise 3-3-3 seating configuration as the aircraft tapers off at the back. Besides, in the reverse direction, these are the 3rd row seats which will allow me to almost pre-board with the business class passengers.

When we are told by our leaders that democracy is in firm ground, maybe a dispassionate look at the matter is in order. The best that one can describe the prevailing democracy is by labelling it as a command democracy displaying monocratic tendencies. It would be hard also to disagree with anyone who chooses to define the present system as one run by a single party.