Nahela Nowshin

Cultural heritage refers to the traditions, values, beliefs, and sense of belonging in a community. It's the shared bond that helps shape our identity. It's the material things, and the tangible and intangible both.

For thousands of Bangladeshi Hajj aspirants every year, the entire process, starting from registration to obtaining a visa to getting on the plane, turns out to be a nightmare.

Almost seven months into the latest round of influx of Rohingyas into Bangladesh— around 700,000 have arrived since August 25 of last year—Myanmar has done next to nothing to show that it is serious about the implementation of the repatriation deal signed with Bangladesh and the safe return of the Rohingya.

Whenever we talk about the state of education in Bangladesh, the age-old debate about English versus Bangla medium re-emerges with regard to quality of teaching, affordability, imparting knowledge about Bengali culture, etc. But while many of the broader concerns have merit, the less obvious aspects of the current education system that deserve some serious thinking are often overlooked. The importance of the mother tongue in education is one of them.

Some crimes are so horrific, so brutal, so barbaric in nature that it is impossible for these acts to not make any human being feel outraged and disgusted at the world we live in. Sexual violence against children is one such unforgiveable crime.

Living costs in Dhaka have soared so high that it's not just low-income groups struggling to make ends meet—the middle class is feeling the squeeze too.

For many animal species, diversion is necessary for survival. The killdeer, for example, is famous for putting up quite a show.

Dhaka dwellers don't need official data to tell them just how suffocating and dangerous the air they are breathing in is.

The Bangladesh government has been globally lauded—and rightfully so—for welcoming with open arms, once again, the persecuted Rohingya people with whom the country has a checkered history. The Rohingyas came to Bangladesh in droves in 1978, 1992, and the 2010s.

It is oftentimes a lie that we tell ourselves to either ignore or mask the hideous inequalities and injustices that make Dhaka one of the most dangerous cities for girls and women to live in.

It is often said that if you want to know the truth about the world, ask a child. Perhaps, it's an unconditioned mind that lets a child see things for what they really are.

Eradicating modern slavery in a country marred by entrenched poverty is no easy task, especially when the majority of it occurs in the private economy—in our private homes and private businesses.

I still remember the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when the news of the brutal killing of 13-year-old Rajon broke on social media two years ago. Is this real? How could they do this to a child? Why did the onlookers simply stand there?

Tucked in a remote corner at the tip of the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, lies a little known city called Darwin—first named in 1839 by John Lort Stokes after his former shipmate and evolutionist Charles Darwin.

Suu Kyi's speech was not only “disappointing” but also cowardly. It towed the typical line of “we have to look at both sides”, completely oblivious to the power dynamics at play: the national army versus a dispossessed population.

Has anyone asked what Bhutan—the tiny kingdom hidden in the folds of the eastern Himalayas—has to say?

A Facebook post shared by a man named Rushad Faridi caught my eye recently. He shared an article with an intriguing title, which he had written for Prothom Alo. But it wasn't the article that grabbed everyone's attention at first. It was the fact that Faridi, a professor in the economics department at Dhaka University, was placed on forced leave less than a week after the article was published on July 7.

When the Nuremberg War Trial began more than 70 years ago, it marked a watershed moment in international law.

“The world watched through my camera [as] this soldier shot the boy in cold blood, and his life was not in any danger at all.

"I grew up as a young girl in Bangladesh, a post-war country at the time ravished by famine, and saw everyone trying to do their part to rebuild the country."