The future of Bengal Delta
31 January 2026, 08:43 AM
Big Picture
Is a global goal on adaptation possible?
29 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Can we make lockdown work this time around?
28 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
It’s time to talk about cotton
27 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Managing environmental resources for green growth in Bangladesh
27 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Why can’t they get their fair share in our budget?
26 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Have we done enough to address the problem of drug abuse?
25 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Street violence and gang culture 2.0
25 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Fighting the Delta variant: Do we have a plan?
22 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Apparel industry needs a clearer strategy for donor funding
20 June 2021, 18:00 PM
Column
Is poverty a dirty word?
In most countries in the world, barring a few, poverty appears to be a dirty word. Even in rich countries such as the USA and UK, it is difficult to find any reliable statistics on the existence of poverty, the level of poverty, or a headcount of poor people. It has recently
3 October 2019, 18:00 PM
Not Giving Up
Back from the UNGA. In the last 5 months and 10 days that I have been serving as president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, my brain has been on an overdrive.
2 October 2019, 18:00 PM
The challenge from Greta Thunberg on tackling climate change
Last week in New York, the United Nations Secretary General (UNSG) Antonia Guitteres held a Global Action Summit where he invited world leaders from selected countries only to come with “plans not speeches” to raise the level of ambition to tackle climate change.
1 October 2019, 18:00 PM
The looming climate crisis: Where is our Greta Thunberg?
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its latest warning saying that the world’s oceans are rising twice as fast as they did in the last century due to fast-disappearing ice-sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland.
30 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Recounting the Brexit drama in five acts
It’s been more than three years that the Brexit drama is being enacted in Britain—dividing the country, its political parties and the parliament.
29 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Why not a national footpath policy?
Population density in cities like Dhaka and Chattogram is daunting.
29 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Our pride, our hope, oh my Bangla Bhaasha!
Famed for his Moder Garob, Moder Aasha, a-mori Bangla Bhaasha, poet, educationist and lawyer Atul Prasad is long gone.
28 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Casino Bengal and a deep-seated malignancy
What we have wit-nessed over the last week, namely, the “discovery” of a large number of casinos, is another instance of the prevalent corruption in, and of, our society. While we have often heard the prime minister expressing her resolve to make the country
27 September 2019, 18:00 PM
What Happens in Fakirapool...
We go gambling in a rickshaw, dreaming of returning in a fifty lakh Taka car and end up returning in a one crore taka jalopy of a bus.
26 September 2019, 18:00 PM
How prepared are we to fight mosquito-borne diseases?
Bangladesh is still reeling from the worst dengue outbreak in its history, even though the initial shock has passed.
25 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Coming transformation on climate change in the US
We have known about the denial of climate change by president Trump of the United States and that he has decided to withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement and is also actively undermining efforts in the US to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
24 September 2019, 18:00 PM
The prime minister’s crusade against corruption
It is no secret that people in general share a common perception that corruption in the country has gone off the rails to the point of becoming nearly unbearable. While high corruption, mainly facilitated by some members of the ruling party of the day, has been a
24 September 2019, 18:00 PM
How to boost FDI
At some of the conferences on Bangladesh held in the USA, particularly at Harvard University, I have noticed that introductory speeches often mention Henry Kissinger and his infamous remark about Bangladesh being a “basket case” or “bottomless basket”.
24 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Will the US-Iran relations ever normalise?
It is amazing that the United States and Iran have maintained an extremely bellicose relation for the past four decades, much to the anxiety of nations of the Middle East. It all began when the Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed under Imam Ayatollah Ruhollah
23 September 2019, 18:00 PM
The missing pieces of our tertiary education puzzle
In 1994, the country had around half a dozen public universities and zero private ones. A quarter of a century later, we now have 135 universities—a large majority of which are private. This growth in the number of tertiary-level educational institutions is certainly a
23 September 2019, 18:00 PM
An apology to our children
“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago,” – Greta Thunberg, United Nations COP24 Climate Summit, Poland 2019
23 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Revisiting our social structures
In the midst of all the political chaos and confusion reigning in our world today, we are perhaps overlooking an important issue—the basic fibre of our social structure is going through a tectonic shift. One would have thought that, over time, class barriers would be
21 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Time to address youth unemployment
Creating employment for its large young population is one of the major policy challenges in Bangladesh at this moment. According to the Labour Force Survey 2016-17 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the national unemployment rate is 4.2 per cent. However,
21 September 2019, 18:00 PM
I am dazed and dejected, but not down.
This chap is such a beyadab. He deserves one big thappar.
20 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Double Trouble
Give him a piece of wire, a nut, a bolt and a small sheet of aluminium foil, and MacGyver makes a Mach 2.0 aircraft in the blink of an eye. For us with wide eyes and narrow choices of TV channels (in fact, just one), the man with the blonde mullet (a term I learn many
19 September 2019, 18:00 PM