Mohammad Zaman

The improved transport network has now reduced the hauling time of vehicles and enhanced economic activity, boosting the national GDP, according to one estimate, to roughly one percent annually.

A pilot project to repatriate over 1,100 Rohingya refugees is now in discussion between Bangladesh and Myanmar, negotiated by China.

With the adoption of the resolution and ICJ involvement soon, the concept of climate justice will likely turn into a movement for equity.

For all of us around the world, the last two years have been rough because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Climate crisis aside, 2021 will be remembered with anguish and misery around the world due to the Covid-19 storms.

Bangladesh is a surprising success story. Emerging out of war and destruction in 1971, few in the world had any optimism about the country’s future.

On November 17, 2021, a resolution titled “The Situation of Human Rights of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar” was adopted at the United Nations with unanimous support—a first for a Rohingya-related resolution since the crisis began in 2017.

The month of February is a prized and sacred one for Bengalis. It reminds us of the sacrifices made for our beloved Bangla language and the rewards it ultimately brought in for Bengalis as a nation.

My recent op-ed for The Daily Star about the controversial drive for citizenship screening in India’s Assam, involving the “illegal” Bengali-origin Muslims, drew considerable attention from the readers, with a particular curiosity about the Miya (also spelled Miyah) poetry used to assert the identity and rights of the people as settlers and citizens of India.

Ecent developments surrounding the controversial National Registry of Citizens (NRC) in Assam have made many extremely worried across borders in Bangladesh and India regarding the future of Bengali Muslim settlers and Hindus alike.

In the last two weeks, the world has witnessed a renewed interest in the Rohingya’s struggles for justice and persecution of Myanmar officials for the Rohingya genocide.

In recent weeks, there have been a flurry of diplomatic activities in the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, starting with the high-level visit of Myanmar delegation led by Myint Thu, Myanmar’s Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Cox’s Bazar.

There is no dearth of opinion on the Rohingya repatriation issue with political leaders, scholars, and even ordinary people all weighing in with their own views.

There are over a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, including the latest batch of 800,000 that came after August 25, 2017 and the 250,000 that arrived since the first exodus of mid-1990s.

It is now clear that the Bangladesh government is all set to relocate nearly 100,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char, a remote island off its coast, starting April 2019.

To date, much has been written and said about the Rohingya crisis. The regime in Naypyidaw has literally flouted all international laws and evaded pressures from the international community.

Bangladesh is viewed globally as the “epic centre” for climate disasters. The country, due to its unique location, is battered regularly by extreme weather events such as high floods and tropical cyclone disasters displacing hundreds and thousands of people annually.

In mid-November, the world was watching with apprehension the unfolding drama surrounding the repatriation of the first batch of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.

I recently attended a public seminar, titled “Resilient Cities: An Integrated Economic Approach to Natural Hazard Risk Mitigation,” held in Vancouver, Canada.

Many reports in recent weeks have highlighted the growing social, economic, environmental and health impacts of Rohingya refugees being settled in Teknaf and other areas of Cox's Bazar.