Shakhawat Liton

The good thing about Gazipur City Corporation polls is that it was peaceful and no incident of casualty was recorded which is rare in our election history.

The just-concluded Khulna City Corporation election may be considered as the beginning of the run-up to the next parliamentary polls. Elections to four other city corporations are expected to be held in the next few months before the national polls which may be held in December. Five years ago, the same things happened in the run-up to the last parliamentary election held on January 5, 2014.

It's called crazy medicine. Produced in Myanmar, the dangerous drug very easily crosses the border and reaches cities, towns and villages of Bangladesh through various channels -- sometimes in full knowledge of law enforcers. It now seems unstoppable and is poised to cripple the country's biggest hope -- the youth.

Some previous verdicts of the Supreme Court about disputes over elections now offer the Election Commission strong legal grounds to have the stay orders on Gazipur and Dhaka north city mayoral polls vacated.

They are like prisons. Yet, the Myanmar government calls them camps. In those camps in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, one lakh Rohingyas have been languishing for almost six years.

Myanmar has been playing tricks not only on Bangladesh but also on the United Nations Security Council over the repatriation of Rohingyas since September last year.

A Latin proverb says “Experience is the best teacher.” In view of famous British historian James Anthony Froude: “Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.” However, our policy of learning is different. Experience seems to have taught us little. This seems to have been reflected again in offering the police arbitrary powers in the proposed digital security law to take action against alleged offences committed using digital devices.

President Abdul Hamid made a unique record in the history of Bangladesh by swearing in as the head of the state for second consecutive term yesterday.

It may be a little surprising for the ordinary citizen to know that according to the proposed digital security law, the punishment for spreading propaganda or campaign against the Liberation War of 1971 or its spirit using digital devices or instigating to do so is almost the same as it is for the crime of murdering a human being.

The Editors' Council yesterday at a meeting with the law minister and post telecommuni-cations and ICT minister expressed deep concern over some provisions in the digital security bill placed in parliament last week. Freedom of expression and independent journalism, they feared, will largely be affected if those provisions remain in the proposed legislation.

This seems to have become a game being played with people's lives and their right to life.

In 2016, the Supreme Court in a verdict on widespread abuse of police's powers over arrest and detention strongly denounced all sorts of torture by the law enforcement agencies and directed magistrates to take action against errant policemen in case of any such incident.

For months and years, George Bush and Tony Blair built the case with certainty that Iraq is an evil power that possessed Weapons

The above quote is a strong and clear manifestation of the Indian Supreme Court's endeavour to protect rights of the media as it recently announced that freedom of speech and expression of the media must be allowed to the fullest and the press may not be hauled up for defamation for “some errors” in its reporting.

Opposition Leader Raushan Ershad's appeal on Tuesday (February 27) to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to relieve three of her party MPs from the council of ministers to help the Jatiya Party emerge as the “real opposition” in parliament, sounds ridiculous. But in the present political context it is not something that would leave anyone dumbfounded. Her husband JP Chairman Ershad, who has remained the special

It has been exactly six months when the Rohingyas started streaming into Bangladesh to escape the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and it took exactly the same many months for the world to forget them, to make them truly nobody's children.

President Abdul Hamid is a lucky president for many reasons. He is set to complete a five-year term next April without being mired in any controversy. And he is likely to get re-elected in a month for another term setting a record in the history of Bangladesh. None of his predecessors in the past have had such luck.

The saga of the Osman family reminds us of a basic universal rule: No one can undermine you until you undermine yourself. The controversial activities of the Osman brothers have continued to bring the family ill repute.

It appears the mayoral by-polls to the DNCC have become uncertain following yesterday's High Court stay order. But the legal complexity can be removed and the LGRD ministry holds the key.

The situation was unique when Awami League unveiled its electoral manifesto four years ago seeking people's support ahead of the