Recent newspaper reports indicate that the finance minister is taking an initiative to form a Banking Commission. This is a welcome move.

The five year long bloody civil war that spiralled out of control soon after it broke out in 2015, has claimed the lives of “tens and thousands” of civilians.

News of another apparel factory tragedy on February 8, which claimed seven innocent lives, throws into sharp focus how much is still needed to be done in the global apparel industry to ensure the safety of its workers.

While at the Uni-versity of Arizona, we had a visiting professor from Stanford University, Prof. Joshua Fishman.

Over the next decade, there are going to be four mega global trends that all countries in the world will have to deal with.

According to the Global Risks Report 2020 from the World Economic Forum (WEF), biodiversity loss is now the third most serious risk our world is facing in terms of impact.

Activist-turned-politician Arjun Kejriwal has had smooth sailing at the recently held Delhi legislative polls, with his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being handed a strong mandate by the Delhiwalas, winning a sweeping 62 out of 70 seats. This is his third straight term in office.

The corona-virus, which has already killed hundreds of people in China and is now making its way across the globe, will inevitably cause significant disruption to apparel supply chains during 2020. The question is, to what extent, for how long, and how will Bangladesh be impacted?

Every single day, a rapist is reported. Every. Single. Day. Let that sink in.

Finally, a breath of fresh air—winds blowing through the higher stratosphere are causing some thought clouds to loosen up and shower good news on higher education.

ndifference and apathy are even worse than hatred. And when those are directed to a system rather than an individual, it is dangerous and ominous, even more so when its significance is either not comprehended or disregarded wilfully.

The 25th annual Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in November 2019 in Madrid, Spain under the presidency of Chile, since the political conditions in Santiago, Chile were not conducive to holding the conference there. Unfortunately, COP25 went into overtime by two days and nights and even then, it was not possible to reach an agreement on some key topics. It was universally deemed to be a failure.

A recent news item caught my attention— “High Court directs the University Grants Commission (UGC) to submit a report on PhD approval process”.

Winter morn-ings in Bangladesh are usually associated with charming sights and sounds—dew drops on fallen brown leaves, shimmering colours formed by sun rays on spider webs, marigolds, dahlias and mustard flowers, and the singing of thousands of migratory birds in the haors, beels and lakes.

In family businesses, the concept of “succession planning” is well known. It is the process of identifying and developing new leaders who can replace old leaders when they leave, retire or die.

In the 80s, one sarcastic comment—for reasons better not stated out of respect for the deceased—was aired every now and then: hurl a stone in Dhaka’s air and you are sure to hit either a poet or a crow. On the surface, it was an innocent joke about the sheer number of creatures—those who fly with their wings and those others who dream to do so with their imagination.

One of the interesting perks of being a brown South Asian, travelling anywhere in the world, is the special attention you get from various official quarters.

Jeanine Cummins, the author of the latest American best-seller novel “American Dirt”, is taking a lot of flak for her story based on the experience of a Mexican woman named Lydia and her eight-year-old son who flee their home and cross over to the USA.

Bangladesh, quite rightly, has aspirations to meet the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the Climate Change goals by 2030, and then to graduate into being a middle income country by 2041.

"You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything,” stated Beth Comstock, former vice chair of General Electric, and I feel this is true when we consider the advances in sustainability made by the apparel industry of Bangladesh and the growing global awareness of the importance of the sustainability agenda.