On a sunny November afternoon in 1997, a ringtone buzzed while I was riding a rickshaw together with a friend.

The readymade garments (RMG) industry is vital to Bangladesh economy. It contributes 84 percent of the total exports—nearly 13 percent of the GDP—and employs some four million workers.

Just as the French Revolution had sent shivers across all the monarchies of Europe, a century and a quarter later the Bolshevik Revolution too rattled all the colonial powers to their core.

Bangladesh is braving the Covid-19 crisis to keep its dream of transition to middle income country alive by putting its economic growth rate for the fiscal year 2020-21 at 8.2 percent.

Energy planning in Bangladesh has been chaotic so far, to say the least.

The United Kingdom has once again returned to the old conservative principle that development aid must be tied to political and foreign policy objectives of the donor government, instead of targets set by various global organisations through consensus.

Earlier this month, the Finance Minister of Bangladesh presented a special Climate Change Budget as part of the national budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, which accounts for approximately 7.5 percent of the national budget.

Prof Serajul Islam Choudhury, a luminary in the field of our literature, has been influencing the spheres of politics, education and media for decades now.

June 12—World Day against Child Labour—wasn’t supposed to be just another Friday. It would have been the launch day of my first book, containing stories about street children.

This week, in The Daily Star’s interview series that aims to give readers an idea of what changes to expect in a post-Covid-19 world, filmmaker Amitabh Reza Chowdhury talks to Minam Haque about the future of independent cinema.

One day, during the gruesome Calcutta riot (1946), a curious boy escaped the strict surveillance of his phupu (paternal aunt), Salema Khatun.

Sometimes you wonder in bafflement.

Nine-months pregnant, Fatema Akhter Mukta, 30, died on June 10 after her family struggled for five days to find a hospital in Bangladesh willing to admit her when she began having trouble breathing. When, finally, a hospital admitted her and referred her to Chittagong Medical College for its intensive care facilities, it was too late.

June 20, 1911 is the birthday of Poet Sufia Kamal, who has played more than a defining role in the history of Bangladesh. In a lifetime dedicated to creating an open and democratic society, she championed the cause of the underprivileged, especially women and minority communities.

We are living in unprecedented times. The Covid-19 pandemic has spread like wildfire around the world, consuming lives, shattering livelihoods and changing the ways we live in profound and possibly lasting ways. We are in the fight of our lives and, at the same time, another human tragedy continues to smoulder and burn: the global displacement crisis.

According to WHO, “test, test and test” is the key strategy for containing the Covid-19 pandemic at the moment. Considering the significance of quick diagnosis, scientists throughout the world continued their effort to develop an easy, economic and effective testing method for diagnosing the disease. The methods used so far for diagnosis could be divided into two major categories: RT-PCR tests and serological tests.

For decades, the regulatory authorities in Bangladesh have opted for the easiest path of collecting revenue by imposing additional taxes on existing products or services enjoyed by people in their everyday life.

Over 100 days of Covid-19 in Bangladesh have brought with it more than one lakh recorded cases of coronavirus and over 1,300 recorded deaths in the country.

May 27, 2020 marked another dark chapter in the history of global migration. On that day, 26 sons of Bangladesh were brutally murdered in Libya.

There is no point in repeating how Covid-19 has been wreaking havoc around the world over the last couple of months. Some say Covid-19 didn’t break the system—it only revealed what was already broken. This is a perspective that merits some thought.