The United Kingdom has finally adopted the long-awaited Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime aimed at tackling human rights abusers around the world.

In 1830, the world population was only 1 billion. It took 100 years for this number to double.

The earth stands still. Time has paused. The bustling streets of yesterday are empty today. Schools and universities which were once filled with joyful youth are now silent. The race that stomped around the ends of the earth, have today been sent home by an enemy smaller than a microbe. Covid-19.

In 1989, the United Nations decided to observe July 11 as World Population Day every year in the wake of the world population reaching five billion.

By the time Muhammad Shahidullah was old enough to begin his secondary education, he already knew five languages. Besides his mother tongue of Bangla, he not only learnt Urdu, Persian and Arabic—perceived to be the languages of Muslims—but he also became proficient in Sanskrit, the primary liturgical language of Hinduism.

Bangladesh had three-months’ notice to prepare for a possible outbreak of Covid-19 but failed to prepare for it.

He departed rather unsung, his glorious past recalled in this country by only a few of his friends and admirers, limited to Facebook posts mainly.

The coronavirus crisis continues to engulf the country as well as the rest of the world. A large number of doctors in Bangladesh (62 as of July 5)—mostly senior clinicians working on the front line—have died due to Covid-19.

Covid-19, caused by the novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, has led to a pandemic that is increasing the burden of mortality and morbidities throughout the world.

Imagine waiting for a bus at a station when someone shouts “Corona, Corona, Corona!” while pointing at you. Instantly everyone looks at you and you wish to disappear into thin air for being held responsible for a deadly virus.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented economic loss, which was more severe in the first half of 2020 than was earlier anticipated.

During the pandemic, forced return of migrants has become a major issue of concern for intergovernmental bodies and the global civil society engaged in migration issues.

America’s recent peace agreement with the Talibans in Doha makes many ponder whether it has lost the war. However, before coming to such a conclusion, we should revisit the aims of this decades-old bloody conflict.

A recent headline in Prothom Alo (June 26, 2020) stated, “Amartya Sen and Noam Chomsky showered Kerala with praise for their successful containment of the coronavirus”.

Border clashes reflect shared suspicion at best and animosity at worst between neighbouring states.

Covid-19 is a direct threat to the health and well-being of all people in the WHO South-East Asia Region. For as long as the virus spreads, the health and well-being of the region’s near two billion people will be at risk, whatever the transmission scenario.

I always wanted to be a professor in English. When the pandemic hit and lockdown began, I ended up being a professor in pandemic.

Back in the day, when a child was born, the elders used to plant a tree in the baby’s name, implying that the tree will grow with the baby and help the baby with fruit and shade when they grow up.

On July 1, The Daily Star shared horrific pictures of the violence inflicted upon 14 year old Asma Khatun, a domestic worker employed in the capital’s Uttara.

In the long tortuous history of the battle for the emancipation of Blacks that continues to this day in the US, progress has sometimes been so slow, and recalcitrant racist biases have been so resistant to change, that the tardy progress or lack thereof has been a cause of bitter frustration.