Sadi Mohammad Shahnewaz

Jaya Ahsan played an instrumental role in ensuring justice for elephants. Responding to a writ filed by popular actress Jaya Ahsan and PAW Foundation Founder and Chairman Rakibul Haque Amil, a court suspended the issuing and renewal of licenses to adopt elephants from the wild.

“I promise that I won’t take another 10-year gap to release my next album!” jested Shayan Chowdhury Arnob, at the intimate launching ceremony of “Bhallagena” on October 27. This was his first solo album after “Doob”, which was released in 2015. A 10-year gap can be devastating to a musician, even someone of Arnob's stature—times change, styles become outdated, and industries move on. But this is Arnob we’re talking about—he helms Coke Studio Bangla, performs all over the world, and has relentlessly reinvented himself throughout the years, all while keeping his signature, quirky timelessness, which is also evident in “Bhallagena”.

As I was about to enter AB Kitchen, I was worried how the man would receive me after four long years of barely any contact. In 2014, I was a naïve teenager, who felt lucky to be included in a musical project with the great Ayub Bachchu – fascinated every time that my name would come out of his mouth.

Despite that, the actress soldiers on. She now refuses to partake in sub-par scripts. “I used to say yes to whichever script was handed to me at one point, but I won’t do that anymore,” says a stern Safa Kabir.

He faced a flood of negative comments over his post related to Bijaya Dashami

Before moving on to a photoshoot, Dhallywood’s ‘King Khan’ had a request for the journalists at The Daily Star, “Our film industry is a treasure-trove of possibilities. Even foreigners are watching subtitled Bangla films with utmost eagerness. Please, talk about our dwindling halls and how our infrastructure needs to improve. We need to raise our voices.”

There is something disarmingly honest in the way director Arafat Mohsin Nidhi and writer Raba Khan present these little exchanges — gestures so mundane they almost go unnoticed in real life, until you realise they are the building blocks of intimacy

Thanks to the release of the nationally beloved film “Utshob” on OTT, it has found its way into social media discussions. Lauded for its family-friendly, emotional, and evocative script, the film arguably peaks in the scene between Sunerah Binte Kamal and Zahid Hasan. A lighter facet of the emotional reunion of the father-daughter duo is Sunerah screeching, “How come this coffee is 350 taka? Outrageous!”, a humorous dialogue which has unexpectedly set off debates on social media.

The most obvious consequence of this surge in AI use has to be the deprivation of artists from jobs they would otherwise have. For a typical 2-minute OVC, an ad agency would have to commit to the cost of casting, filming, editing, and sound – a sizeable fee. It is becoming increasingly lucrative for companies to cut costs by simply using an AI render of what they envisioned.

I am currently recording a tribute album, one that I’d been planning for a long time. It will feature reimaginations of the ‘90s songs that we dearly love, voiced by the talents of the 2000s – It’s the ultimate ‘what-if’ scenario.

Review of ‘Jodi Lokkho Thake Otut: Shafolyer Khola Koushol’ (Anyaprokash, 2025) by Asif Iqbal

In moments of national crisis, instead of silence or responsible support, we see people racing to post

Amidst the authoritarian regime’s crackdown on protesters, the former Miles frontman was one of the first from the music industry to speak out without any filter whatsoever. He did that a good two weeks before musicians would be mobilized into “Get up, Stand up,” which culminated in a historical musical protest on August 3. Little did we know that we would lose him only 3 days after that Facebook post. He had lost his life to a heart attack while on a tour with his lineup in North America.

There’s a certain weight that comes with reviewing a “Superman” movie. For decades, the “Man of Steel” has stood as a pop culture monolith—a symbol of hope, morality, and larger-than-life heroics. I went in to enjoy James Gunn’s ambitious reboot, weighing whether this iteration of the Kryptonian saviour could soar above the fatigue of a superhero-saturated landscape. I came out with the realisation that Superman may not be flawless, but it flies high enough to remind us why this hero matters.

Brainrot essentially describes the withering of mental faculties from overexposure to low-value digital content.

My em dashes are showing – Am I AI?

Let's face it – you're more likely to consume news from social media than a reputed news outlet, simply because of how firmly social media is embedded in most people's daily lives. While the unreliability of news adrift on social media is dangerous for the consumer, the steady decline of traditional news media is also career-threatening for journalists.

What was supposed to be a conversation on Jaya’s spectacular success in both “Taandob” and “Utshob” soon turned into a pseudo-political discussion on the future of women in the country. How could it not? The entire country has meanwhile been shaken to its core after the brutal rape of a woman in Cumilla.

This is where Badhan steps in as the lead, playing officer Leena. From the get-go, she is a no-nonsense character. She is a strong police officer, but a heavily traumatised woman. It is the trauma that leads her to train, persist, and become a law enforcement officer in the first place, a plot device that pays off to its fullest near the end.

Once a sweetheart of television, Sabila Nur has hit the bullseye with her silver-screen debut with a leading role opposite Shakib Khan in “Taandob”. The film will go down in Bangladesh’s cinematic history for being rife with action, twists, and cameos.