Monorom Polok

Before I offer my perspective, it is important to first clarify where responsibility lies. The factory owners themselves are entirely responsible for the situation they now call harmful to the industry. For all the things involved, there is no one else to blame—not the workers, not the labour leaders, not the government, not any international organisation.

Dr Md Shamsul Hoque, professor of civil engineering at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), talks to Monorom Polok of The Daily Star about the role of systemic failures and corruption behind the alarming rate of traffic fatalities in Bangladesh, and the critical structural reforms required to curb it.

In Bangla, terms related to mental illness are often reduced to one crude word: pagol (a mad person).

We have built a society where many elderly people are entirely dependent on others to go out.

The interim government should have made some headway by now.

OHCHR alone cannot prevent atrocities anywhere when there is systematic denial by the concerned state or any authority of its duties, and a failure of the international community to act.

Nur Khan Liton, a human rights activist, discusses his experience of dealing with cases of custodial torture and deaths in an exclusive interview with Monorom Polok of The Daily Star.

Writer-researcher Altaf Parvez discusses the recommendations made by the Labour Reform Commission to improve the state of workers in the country, in a conversation with Monorom Polok of The Daily Star.