The year 2020 will be remembered as not just the year of the pandemic, but also for the experienced human-induced climate change impacts,

South Asian countries share common traditions, heritage, culture and history. Thus it is not surprising that Bangladesh, India and Pakistan also share the colonial legacy of repressive and authoritarian laws, often called the “colonial hangover”.

This year’s UN Road Safety Week (17-23 May) under the theme “Streets for Life” calls to implement a maximum vehicular speed of 30 kilometres per hour in streets used by a mix of pedestrians and vehicles around residential, school and hospital areas.

This February, Bangladesh received the endorsement of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (UNCDP) regarding its final timeline for exiting the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group. Bangladesh is now scheduled to leave the LDC category in 2026.

The sight of an Israeli soldier kicking a Palestinian Muslim while he is in the midst of his afternoon prayer, right in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem,

Eight years ago, in May, a large crowd staged a sit-in at Gezi Park, next to Taksim Square, Istanbul’s bustling public plaza in the downtown of its European side.

So far they pursued their vocations with enthusiasm and passion, and enjoyed doing so. Now forced by the circumstances most can no longer be engaged in their professional activities and have to pass their days in intense uncertainty.

Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza strip continues.

The pandemic has pointed out the need for placing the youth issues at the centre stage of policy discourse.

Seldom does an assembly or Lok Sabha election in any Indian state arouse as much interest among the people across the country’s border as in Bangladesh. The results of the recent assembly polls in West Bengal and Assam were keenly watched in India’s eastern neighbour. The interest in West Bengal was, understandably, much greater given the powerful linguistic and cultural connections between the state and Bangladesh.

Dr Firdausi Qadri of Icddr,b, Dr Salma Sultana of Model Livestock Advance-ment Foundation and Prof Samia Subrina of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)—three Bangladeshi women scientists have recently made us proud.

As much of the world continues to reel under the coronavirus crisis, there is an increasingly frantic scramble for more and more vaccines in countries seeking to protect their people against the disease.

Last week, I wrote in this daily about the need for Bangladesh to take a “whole of society” approach to international diplomacy on tackling climate change globally, rather than depending on the annual Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which meets only once a year for two weeks.

The Bangladesh Right to Information (RTI) Act 2009 is a unique piece of legislation. Most laws are largely founded on the concept of government responsibility to regulate citizen behaviour, but the RTI law establishes government accountability to its citizens.

As the sun was about to set over the Gaza horizon on May 10, 2021, the community would not have known what was to happen that night. But they are citizens of Gaza, and what did happen would not have taken them by surprise. Israeli bombardment overnight of the besieged strip has claimed the lives of 21 Palestinians, including nine children. As dawn broke, there was devastation and a fresh round of Israeli attacks killing another three people. By the time of writing this, at least 26 lives have been lost to Israeli attacks.

As the government rolls out a financial assistance scheme in the country to support the poor in the face of the economic fallout of the pandemic, the urban poor are finding themselves in a tight spot.

Conscious citizens were appalled after seeing the photos of chopped branches and logs in Suhrawardy Udyan after several mature trees of the park were cut down as part of an ongoing government undertaking—the Independence Monument Construction (Phase III) Project.

In June 2019, the members of a citizen group in Jessore’s Keshabpur upazila called their upazila engineer to inform him that the contractor who was building their village road brought low-quality bricks for the purpose, instead of the higher quality ones he was supposed to.

Uncountable numbers of people in India are suffering the painful and deadly consequences of a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

At a time when most people are struggling to choose between life and livelihood, there are members of our society who have been going out of their way to help make life easier for those who have been afflicted by the virus.