On May 19, the finance minister said, “The scope [to whiten black money] will be there as long as undisclosed incomes will be there.” (The Daily Star) Before commenting on this statement, let’s take a step back and think how we got to this point.

Bangladesh is potentially approaching a dual crisis. One is the shortage of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Covishield, leaving over 14 lakh people in uncertainty over their second doses, and the other is the emergence of the notorious “Indian variant” in the country.

During the latest rerun of the biblical David and Goliath narrative in a changed context, the age-old conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines has come alive.

What is the picture that flashes through your mind when someone talks of social classes? A reader of The Guardian newspaper once made an interesting albeit highly generalised observation.

The history of designing and delivering policy-driven economic stimulus packages is customarily traced back to the “New Deal” which was implemented in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Expatriate workers are our goose of Aesop’s Fables that lays the golden eggs.

The complainant is now complained against.

It is not easy to rationalise some of the recent actions of the government related to the realm of governance, in other words, related to us the people. For now, let us address the second wave of the pandemic and the government’s actions or reactions to deal with it.

Schools have been fully or partially closed for more than a year in many developing countries. As of March 29, 2021, the world’s longest full closure was in Bangladesh, at 47 weeks, according to the UNESCO.

What the Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said on May 20 about his ministry’s predicament is nothing unique. Expressing his regret about Prothom Alo journalist Rozina Islam’s arrest, he said, “As foreign ministry,

May 21, 2021, Friday, 2 AM Israeli local time: an Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, ending the recent 11-day Israeli bombardment of Gaza. All told, the attack on the besieged Palestinian strip claimed the lives of 248 Palestinians, including 66 children.

Professor Dr Shahida Akhter, a well-known child health specialist, passed away prematurely from liver cancer at 59 years of age on May 1, 2021. She was soft-spoken, introverted, humble and beloved by many people.

The world is having to tackle three major emergencies at the same time. The first is obviously the Covid-19 pandemic that is still raging around the world, the second is climate change, which is also getting much worse every year, and finally, there is biodiversity loss, which will mean the loss of up to a million species if we cannot stem the tide.

I felt distressed and embarrassed after coming across the news of senior journalist Rozina Islam’s ordeal of harassment at the health ministry and her eventual arrest.

The internet and its cloak of anonymity seemingly avails us with freedom on all counts. What people see of one’s life on their social media profile/s, for instance, is what they want people to see.

Few Muslim women received an education and fewer still entered regional or national politics when Noor Jehan was born in the village of Taranagar in the District of Murshidabad on May 22, 1925.

The latest Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum makes clear that around the world, from Bangladesh to the United States, the impact of the pandemic has disproportionately hit those most vulnerable or in need.

In this age of intelligent machines, journalists often keep information that is sensitive, confidential and self-evidentiary in their laptops or mobile phones, or in cloud storage facilities.

Bangladesh was quick in response to the educational challenges brought on by the pandemic in 2020, initially through Ghore Boshe Sikhi, and then through Bangladesh Betar.

In my last article in The Daily Star, I wrote that Bangladesh needs to urgently act to retain the GSP+ facility post-LDC status.