Badiuzzaman Bay

In an article in August 2018, I argued that emerging political leaders, because of the unique socioeconomic reality in which they grew up, might be more likely to accept change and less likely to default to norms and practices pursued by their boomer predecessors.

It could have been just another episode in the regular show of police and ruling party men merrily clamping down on the “disturbers of public peace” who love to play with people’s emotions with their pesky ideas and noisy chants of human rights abuses.

From harsh legal penalties to severe moral reprimands, from street protests and sit-ins to virtual seminars and teach-ins, from increasing mobilisation and visibilisation of pro-choice activists to critical interventions by state and non-state actors—nothing, and no one, seems to be able to deter the rapists or protect women and children.

What does it mean to be nonviolent in a world full of horror and chaos, not to mention weapons and instruments of every kind created to inflict pain?

Stories of corruption no longer produce the same shock they once did.

In April, British journalist and author Susie Boniface, in an article for Mirror Online, asked her readers to take a moment to imagine a world in which there is no journalism.

No, the pandemic is not over—far from it, actually, despite what the ministers might tell you—although at times it does feel like we’ve reached the end.

Nearly half a century after the 1971 War of Liberation, it is perhaps difficult to produce or come across startlingly original ideas about Tajuddin Ahmad.

The call for defunding police in the US, after the death of George Floyd in police brutality, is one of the most striking messages coming out of what is perhaps the largest civil movement in US history.

Not long ago, I was watching a webinar on the plight of returning migrant workers streamed live on Facebook by The Daily Star.

So it’s official now. The government is going to shut down all 25 state-owned jute mills operated by Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) and lay off about 25,000 workers involved with them.

In 1883, the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet about the virtues of diversity and inclusion.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This comment by Vladimir Lenin, describing the Bolshevik revolution over 100 years ago, serves as an apt metaphor for the journey Bangladesh has had since March 8, when the country confirmed its first Covid-19 case.

This week, in The Daily Star’s new interview series that aims to give readers an idea of what changes to expect in a post-Covid 19 world, Dr Quamrul Haider talks to Badiuzzaman Bay.

Great names are formed by great events. It’s a truism that applies as much to the leaders and revolutionaries as to the pundits and intellectuals.

Press freedom in Bangladesh has been in decline long before the coronavirus came to our shores.

Winter lasted a little longer than usual this year. Having grown used to shorter, barely cold seasons in recent years, it was something of a surprise to see a winter extending well into March.

Every day, long before dawn, before insanity grips Dhaka and all manners of chaos start swirling around us, certain parts of the capital fall into a familiar routine: alarms go off and shoes go on. A group of students are on their way to the university library.

If Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda is not your favourite go-to guy when you look for truths, he has only himself to blame.

If the heavens are kind this time and everything pans out as expected by the mayoral wannabes, a golden age for Dhaka is now within reach.