One of the primary reasons put forward to make a case for outlawing private tutoring and coaching is that it is discriminatory. In a country where one in four students drop out of school before completing their primary education due to poverty, tutoring being a necessity, certainly adds extra pressure on the economically less fortunate parents.

I still remember the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when the news of the brutal killing of 13-year-old Rajon broke on social media two years ago. Is this real? How could they do this to a child? Why did the onlookers simply stand there?

This month the famed Afghan historian, Nancy Dupree, died in Kabul at the age of 89, after having dedicated her life to the preservation of Afghan culture.

Media reports about the abuse of children tell us a chilling story that we have suddenly become a nation which doesn't value its children, which takes cruelty against them as a matter of routine, and which doesn't feel ashamed when a 5-year-old girl is raped in front of her parents.

Tapping solar energy, Bangladesh has been able to provide access to electricity to over 12 percent of her population outside the grid network through the installation of more than 4.5 million solar home systems. Despite its huge potential, however, consumers of grid-connected electricity are yet to exploit the power of the sun to their advantage.

Finally, the barbaric regime of Myanmar has been put on the dock and found guilty of the crime of all crimes: genocide.

The most imme-diate uncomfortable truth is that it is virtually impossible to separate Pakistan's domestic security concerns from its external ones. Not because they can be dismissed as the result of foreign interference but because they are often the legacy of past policies.

Today, on another August 29, how many people remember that dark night when these patriotic and fearless young men had been captured? Do the members of our new generation have any interest in reading about the young Bengali guerrillas who were murdered by the Pakistani army in 1971?

The Philippines legislature, in March 2017, reinforced the death penalty for drug offenders, despite resistance from the countries and communities in the Western hemisphere.

Unless the voters feel safe—and if the EC fails to deploy forces under its control within a security template that should have been prepared by now (and if the use of security forces is reactive rather than proactive)—it will be a total wastage of the 70 percent of the election budget apportioned to security.

While we must explore how best to utilise our current demographic dividend, we cannot afford to overlook the possibility of a demographic chaos looming large on the horizon should we continue on with our failures.

Tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors in the world over the past six decades. Many developing countries—Thailand, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kenya—have reconstructed their economy through the proper utilisation and management of the tourism industry. Bangladesh has the potential to become a leader in this area, being a land full of natural beauty.

ASEAN was born literally out of the ashes of colonialism and the Vietnam War. It started as a security pact, but gradually evolved into an economic and financial community that is not yet a cultural common, mainly because of its celebrated diversity.

When Partition occurred Sabuha Khan's parents were divided on whether to leave Delhi and Rohtak permanently.

Inclusion of road safety targets in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the middle of the UN decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-20 has reinforced the urgency of initiating reforms or legislation for bringing discipline in the road and transport sector.

During those days, a young man, full of determination, joined the movement against British Raj to free his countrymen from the clutches of colonial rule. His name is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Did the Chileans kill Salvador Allende and replace him with General Pinochet, a military dictator who took his people a hundred years back? Were the great patriots of Africa, Asia and Latin America killed by their own people? But the final verdict is history's. A great patriot doesn't die, he returns with a thunder. His people keep him alive in their hearts.

One has to agree that in the political progression of a nation, the obvious has to be stated time and again. The fact that public memory is short and that there have been efforts to deliberately twist the history of our political struggle should, in fact, compel us to delineate the authentic course of our history.

I first saw Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the future Bangabandhu and the father of a new nation, in 1946 when I went to Calcutta to begin my college education. He was then a final year student in Islamia College (now Maulana Azad College) where the formal attire of Muslim students was black achkan.

Last week my elder brother made a remark that shook my understanding of education, “I learn today more from YouTube than I have learnt all my life”. In truth, we are bombarded by so much information that we have knowledge indigestion.