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BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

Shamsad Mortuza

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

Dr Shamsad Mortuza is the vice-chancellor of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).

Cox’s Bazar Tourism Problems

Cox’s Bazar at the crossroads of beauty without design

18 April 2026, 11:00 AM
Nobody questions the potential of Cox’s Bazar. Clearly, it can compete with any of the top-class beaches elsewhere. For that, the administrators need to think beyond immediate, narrow interests. They need to plan access roads despite local pressures.
18 April 2026, 11:00 AM
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Blended learning in an energy crisis: Innovation or institutional amnesia?

11 April 2026, 08:00 AM
“My classroom has four ceiling fans, but if we are to attend online classes from home, we will need 50 fans.”
11 April 2026, 08:00 AM
Long_queues_ED_1.jpg

Austerity and the crisis of fuel, confidence and coordination

4 April 2026, 09:00 AM
Last week, while buying vegetables from an open market, I could not help feeling dissatisfied over the hiked price of every item. “It seems you are still in a moon-sighting mode,” I said, to which the seller responded nonchalantly, “What can I do?
4 April 2026, 09:00 AM
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The surcharge of Eid-time tragedies

28 March 2026, 08:00 AM
In Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, a character with supposed authority intensifies the absurdity by quantifying emotion.
28 March 2026, 08:00 AM
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The unfinished promise to Bangladesh’s women

14 March 2026, 02:15 AM
Given the election results, one could assume that the female voters have registered a clear electoral message. They do not want to retreat into the margins of civic life. And why should they?
14 March 2026, 02:15 AM
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When our indifference breaks our children

7 March 2026, 01:16 AM
The posthumous Swadhinata Padak for Maherin Chowdhury, a teacher who died saving at least 20 students from the burning remains of Milestone School and College after it was hit by a fighter jet last year, brought back sad memories of losing children and teachers in a single tragic blow.
7 March 2026, 01:16 AM
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Depoliticise institutions, not ideas

28 February 2026, 01:06 AM
Not often do you hear a politician saying that “politicising education, research, and the practice of arts and literature is never a mark of a civilised society.”
28 February 2026, 01:06 AM
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What the scheduling fiasco of Ekushey book fair tells us

21 February 2026, 02:05 AM
Ekushey February (February 21) is a date that reminds the Bangladeshi people of their culture as well as their originary moments.
21 February 2026, 02:05 AM
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It ain’t over ‘til it’s over

Covid-19 is back and it is back with a vengeance, as if to puncture the false confidence we were assuming about the antidotes.
2 April 2021, 18:00 PM
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Binge-watching borderless borders

"Why do they even try? They don’t sound like us!” My mother was referring to the “bong” accents emulated by some of the Indian actors who occupy our living rooms every evening. That does not stop these characters from becoming regular guests of our evening party.
26 March 2021, 18:00 PM
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The saga of a three-finger salute

News of the pandemic waves of Covid-19 and political waves of the three-fingered protest is making the rounds.
19 March 2021, 18:00 PM
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When the Deaf is Heard

The footage is harrowing. A speech-impaired girl is pushed off a running bus for not being able to pay her fare. She was wearing a note saying that she did not have any money on her.
12 March 2021, 18:00 PM
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Off-shore campuses

During a trade dialogue held at the Ministry of Commerce on February 17, the UK envoy to Bangladesh announced that at least nine British universities are keen on coming to Bangladesh and opening their campuses.
5 March 2021, 18:00 PM
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The Mosquito and the Ear

There used to be a TV advert in which a husband was rebuked by his judgmental wife for not being able to kill even a mosquito that was sitting on her cheek.
26 February 2021, 18:00 PM
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The hidden politics behind writing Bangla in Roman script

In academia, the status of English is often contested in the Bangladeshi context. Is it a second language or a foreign language? There should not be any such question about our first language, our mother tongue in our everyday life. Bangla is our number one language.
20 February 2021, 18:00 PM
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Dhaka’s paradoxical delights

Dhaka is growing right before our eyes. Every day it is birthing new projects.
19 February 2021, 18:00 PM
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Toxic spirit and sensationalism

Five students of a private university went to a restaurant at Uttara to get a drink.
12 February 2021, 18:00 PM
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Learning unlearning and relearning

Growing up in the 80s, one of the silliest things we used to do was to play loud music in our cassette decks.
5 February 2021, 18:00 PM
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E-learning: A boon or a bane?

In our Viber group, a departmental colleague shared an excerpt from a student’s exam script. The student wrote down the title of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book “The Interpreter of Maladies” as “The Translator of Disease”.
22 January 2021, 18:00 PM
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Consuming facts without flavours

A national newspaper ran a story on January 10 featuring the research expenditure of public and private universities of Bangladesh.
15 January 2021, 18:00 PM
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‘A tumultuous and triumphal homecoming’

On January 17, 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
9 January 2021, 18:00 PM
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Reimagining the future of education

Getting the news of vaccine was a figurative shot in the arm for the human race plagued by an ever-evolving crown-shaped virus.
1 January 2021, 18:00 PM
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World Rankings and Indexes: Like Ducks to Water

Ever since a London based agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) partnered with Times Higher Education to measure “academic excellence” against a host of quality indicators at the beginning of the millennium, universities all over the world have been attracted to the idea like ducks to water.
25 December 2020, 18:00 PM
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On shared and contested histories

National Professor Rafiqul Islam, speaking at a virtual event organised by ULAB in remembrance of the martyred intellectuals, mentioned that the job of writing the history of the Liberation War should have been given to the universities from the start and not to the politicians.
18 December 2020, 18:00 PM
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Three Songs of Freedom

Music has the power to delve into the heart of the listeners and create decision affecting moods. During the liberation war, songs became a weapon to influence the mood and morale of the nation.
18 December 2020, 18:00 PM
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The inescapable greed grid of the health sector

I walked out of the doctor’s chamber with my mother when someone took the prescription from me.
11 December 2020, 18:00 PM
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In Like a Lion, Out Like a Kitty

A lot of whimpers and whines are coming out of the White House as the sun sets on the Trump presidency. The man in question is convinced that he has been cheated out of power.
4 December 2020, 18:00 PM
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On being ‘silly’

On a day like this, 33 years ago, I became a man. To be precise, on November 28, 1987 at 12:10 pm in the emergency ward of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), I became a man.
27 November 2020, 18:00 PM

Pagination

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