So it’s official now. The government is going to shut down all 25 state-owned jute mills operated by Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) and lay off about 25,000 workers involved with them.

In his address to a seminar on “National Strategy for Prevention of Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism 2019-2021” in November 2019, Finance Minister Mustafa Kamal said that it is not only that money laundering “creates macroeconomic distortion”, but it is “largely destroying our country in various ways”.

We need to do better. We need a complete “industry reset”. We “cannot go back to the way things were before”. I hear all of these sentiments and read about them each day on my various social media feeds. Part of me thinks, “yes, we must strive for a better industry”.

The recent announcement of merging the UK Department for International Development (DFID) with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has made the development community baffled and anxious.

There was a broken black chair by the window near the gate. On it there was a thin plastic bag containing some mixed up rice, daal, and probably vegetables or curry.

In 1883, the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet about the virtues of diversity and inclusion.

The Awami League celebrates its 71st birth anniversary on June 23, 2020. Looking back, any ardent student of history would come face to face with the fact that the divisions that were to characterise the differing interests of the educated Muslims in the then East Bengal, began to manifest themselves in the penultimate years of British rule in India.

I have posted on social media regularly about the issue of brands delaying payments to suppliers in the wake of growing concerns about Covid-19.

The need for increased fiscal space in the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021, which is the Covid budget, had been pronounced loudly way before the budget was announced on June 11, 2020. Domestic resource mobilisation by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is the major source of financing the budget. The other sources are borrowing from the banking system, sale of national savings certificates, foreign loans and assistance.

Hundreds and thousands of refugees and migrants are preyed upon every year by human traffickers with false promises of a better future, a home.

The national budget announced by the Bangladesh government is another example of the curious disconnect between reality and the world of politics.

Uncertainties loom large over the holding of Higher Secondary Certificates (HSC) and its equivalent exams.

Today, after a period of hiatus, I have once again taken up my pen (metaphorically) to remember and celebrate a hero—a woman of courage and integrity who changed the world, not with fire and fury but with her soft touch.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This comment by Vladimir Lenin, describing the Bolshevik revolution over 100 years ago, serves as an apt metaphor for the journey Bangladesh has had since March 8, when the country confirmed its first Covid-19 case.

On May 27, 2020, a devastating fire broke out in the corona isolation unit of United Hospital in Gulshan, which claimed the lives of five patients who were receiving treatment there.

Cities have generally been the epicentres of the devastation caused by Covid-19, fuelling debates around the world on how to make cities more resilient against future pandemics.

There are very few positives to be taken from the past few weeks as Covid-19 has wreaked havoc around the world, killing otherwise healthy people—and placing otherwise healthy businesses on life-support. In fact, as I write this, a great many garment suppliers globally are in urgent need of their own “intensive care”. Cash is the lifeblood of our industry, and right now, many thousands if not tens of thousands of garment factories around the world are running out of it.

The finance minister of Bangladesh deserves thanks for presenting the national budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021 at a time when the implications of Covid-19 (C19) pandemic is dire.

Police brutality is no strange phenomenon to the American criminal law enforcement scenario. However, the happenings since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last month have demonstrated unusually deep anger and anguish, and protests continue.

I had a senior colleague at Jahangirnagar University who was known to his students at the Pharmacy Department as an eccentric genius.