The 2021 West Bengal assembly polls have been a tussle for power between the centre and the state government.

In the early hours of Monday morning, when most of us were tucked comfortably in our beds, eight-year-old Meem lost her entire family after the speedboat she was on crashed and overturned in the middle of the Padma river, drowning and killing 26 passengers.

The second wave of the pandemic has hit life and livelihood hard and has thrown us all into deep anxiety. For 40 million students,

Elon Musk’s mission to populate Mars seems to be always on trend, even when nobody is particularly talking about it. It’s been several years since the announcement of such an endeavour, and in 2020 we’ve seen some stories about the first space crew for this grand mission (even though nothing has been finalised).

Food insecurity in Bangladesh during the pandemic is rising. Even in the best of times, millions of people in the country go hungry.

Bangla nijer meyer kachei thaaklo (Bengal has stayed with its own daughter). When Trinamool Congress (TMC) came out with the slogan “Bangla nijer meyekay chai” in February, it could not have been more prophetic.

"Last year, in February-March, a lot of experts had said that India will be the worst-affected country, there will be tsunami of cases.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, educational institutions have been closed in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus.

As a nation Bangladeshis commemorated the golden jubilee of their independence a little more than a month ago.

For better or worse, Bangladesh as a sourcing hub has become the global bellwether for CSR issues in apparel supply chains.

In a televised address to the nation on April 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the gigantic second wave of the coronavirus in India as a “toofan.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has created unprecedented havoc around the world. However, a crisis of this extent also creates opportunities to test and resolve issues that seem unsolvable at other times.

Ah! May Day. It’s here. Our newspapers will carry a close-up shot of hardworking men or women in action (e.g., breaking bricks, carrying loads, or manning the machine) to draw our attention to the tears and sweat of a largely overlooked mass whose discomfort ensures the comfort of the rest.

On Labour Day, I am reminded of 22-year-old Jewel Hossain, who in January this year, was conducting his evening shift at a polythene factory when the machine malfunctioned and the blade ripped through him and gouged one of his eyeballs out.

Lately, the world university ranking systems, especially promoted by the private universities for attracting prospective students in Bangladesh, have brought attention to the state of research in local universities.

"Is it OK to hit a child at least once in their lifetime?”—asked a Bangladeshi parent in a post on social media.

As many as 150 million people globally, roughly the combined population of Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, may have fallen into pandemic-induced extreme poverty over the past year.

When Bangladesh was first hit by Covid-19 in March/April last year, we all thought that we would be seeing the end of it soon, at most by the year’s end.

How do corruption and poverty impact each other? I remember reading “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty”, a book gifted by a German friend of mine on my birthday.

It has been more than a year since Covid-19 was first detected in Bangladesh. Much has been, and continues to be, said about the country’s handling of the pandemic.