Shamsad Mortuza

There is a danger of reducing the protest surrounding this year’s Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations to youthful resentment.

The performative presence of two superpowers in the precincts of Bangladesh’s national parliament has added some twists in the country’s political plot.

Two text messages appeared on my phone on Thursday evening as I came out of cinema after watching Tan Siyou’s Amoeba, a Singaporean film about teenage girls suffocating within an extremely controlled system.

As someone who had the opportunity to stay back after completing further studies, I feel that portraying the issue of non-returning academics as a crisis of individual morality, rather than reflecting on the lack of institutional incentives that allow Bangladeshi scholars to opt for a different destiny, only tells half of the story.

Reading a recent report by The Daily Star on the number of measles victims, I could not help but link the number “666” printed in red with something ominous.

The proposed budget for FY2026-27 indicates a welcome shift in language to back up the government’s electoral promise to gradually increase public investment in education.

Instead of framing the issue as a debate on tradition versus modernity, we need to ask whether we are capable of caring for what we claim to value. If the crocodile was heritage, why was it not managed responsibly? If the child’s safety mattered, why was the danger not addressed earlier? If the shrine was sacred, why was its ecology left to improvisation?

I am sitting in a hotel room in Islamabad, reading a recent Bonik Barta report that makes a compelling argument: