Shazzad Khan

The fundamental mandate of the Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) is to address the issues of marginality and exclusion in the country.

For development workers, especially those working for the rights and entitlements of the poor and vulnerable, a common question we face is how we should go about improving governance in Bangladesh.

My father, a prolific reader of literature about the historical events connecting India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, was a great admirer of Indian writer-columnist Kuldip Nayar. “Don't miss it,” he would tell me, about Nayar's weekly column published by The Daily Star. I often heard my father say that Muhammad Ali Jinnah used to be called an “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”.

In 1973 at the Algiers Non-Aligned Summit, embracing Bangabandhu, Cuba's Fidel Castro remarked, “I have not seen the Himalayas. But I have seen Sheikh Mujib. In personality and in courage, this man is the Himalayas. I have thus had the experience of witnessing the Himalayas.”

The world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking passed away on March 14, 2018. His death has left me saddened like millions around the world. But I was happy to see that The Daily Star had published a couple of articles on Stephen Hawking, one of which was written by a Bangladeshi academic. It inspired me to express my thoughts and feelings about how Hawking's work has influenced me.