Badiul Alam Majumdar

The most common question that people are asking these days is: will the upcoming general election be free and fair?

The 15th Amendment did not have the support of the major opposition.

As citizens, we have been largely deprived of many rights, including our right to exercise franchise. Not only that, our politics is now under massive strain as a result of the attempts of the political parties to uproot their respective rival parties over the years.

All our institutions are crumbling because of politicisation, inefficiencies, and corruption.

In order to make the next general election an acceptable one, the EC must evolve beyond the use of CCTV cameras.

What the suspension of Gaibandha-5 by-poll really means

The just completed Cumilla City Corporation election was a “test case” for the newly formed Awal Commission.

In a recent press briefing, Justice Obaidul Hassan, chair of the Search Committee for the Election Commission (EC), confirmed their decision not to disclose the names of the 10 individuals they will recommend to the president to constitute the new EC.

In his famous Gettysburg Address of 1863, Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

On January 27, after much debate, drama and blame game, the Appointment of Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2022 was passed in parliament.

The elections of 1,198 union parishads (UPs) were held in two phases. We have noticed five notable features in these elections.

The infection rate and deaths from the coronavirus have been increasing after the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays. On June 26 the infection rate was 22.50 percent (with 4,334 cases) and there were 77 Covid-related deaths, fuelled by the Indian Delta variety, which is a lot more infectious and deadly.

My former classmate, now the finance minister, presented in the Parliament the budget for the year (also the golden anniversary of our independence), and I congratulate him for this honour.

On May 24, the Cabinet Division wrote to the Secretaries of Security Division of the Home Ministry and the Election Commission (EC) to amend the National Identity Registration Act (Jatiyo Parichoypotro Nibondon Ain), 2010 and transfer the personnel and infrastructure used for providing NID services, which includes 594 server-stations, to the Security Division.

Despite the claims made a few months ago that Bangladesh has successfully—more successfully than many western countries—beat back the coronavirus,

Bangladesh was unable to put in quarantine 213 students who came from the Chinese city of Wuhan—where the coronavirus originated—in early February and the subsequent influx of hundreds of thousands of people from countries like Italy where the virus was causing havoc.

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”.

On April 16, as coronavirus continued to spread through the country, the government declared all of Bangladesh to be at risk from the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of coronavirus a global pandemic. Over 14,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 have been infected, although there is uncertainty about the numbers as many of those infected may not show symptoms.

In 1964, I was enrolled as a student at the University of Dhaka (DU) and became active in student politics, although my involvement began during the education movement of the early 1960s.