Mohammad Badrul Ahsan, the inimitable author of the sparkling “Cross Talk” column in The Daily Star and Editor of the now defunct biweekly “First News” is no more, his life cut short abruptly at the age of 60, when his full potential as a writer was yet to blossom.

This is to redeem my pledge to my friend and classmate Ambassador Harun ur Rashid and write his obituary if I survive him.

It is with deep sadness that we learned of the passing of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, our Abed bhai.

I had my first encounter with Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 1971 in Oxford. Abed called to inform me on the efforts by him and his group in London in support of Bangladesh’s liberation struggle.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed once said to me, “small is beautiful.” He was a systems thinker before that term had even entered our consciousness.

It was in March 1979 when I met Sir Fazle Hasan Abed for the first time. He called me for a job interview. I met him at his modest office of the then Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) on Circular Road, Moghbazar.

Lord Campden is what his friends would call him, in the heady days that lie between youth and adulthood. He was a sharp dressing, cigar smoking, culture-loving European aesthete—a finance executive leading a privileged life in London, one of the great world cities.

Syed Mohammad Ali, popularly known as SM Ali, a distinguished journalist of Bangladesh, was born ninety-one years ago in this month—on December 5, to be specific—in a well-known literary family of Sylhet. His is a candid portrait of a journalist who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and writing gift to serving the nation.

Ajoy Roy has worn many hats throughout his life—as a bright scientist; professor of physics; human rights and secular activist; author; and perhaps

Sher-e-Bangla was an “institution” rather than an “individual”. So say his critics as well as his admirers.

Mohammad Shah, a well-known scholar and professor of history at University of Chittagong, died on September 29, 2019. After a fatal road accident at Hathazari, Chattogram, in which he was involved, he was put on life support, and on the eighth day in hospital, he breathed his last. What a tragedy! We, his students, couldn’t hold back our tears.

While learning how to subtract and multiply, a boy surprised his uncle, Kazi Abul Hossain, by discovering the rules of division in advance. Later, this young boy gained fame as the first statistician, scientist, educator, chess player and prominent literary figure of

In 1891, shortly after the death of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “One wonders, how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man.”

Today marks the 10th death anniversary of Dr Norman E Borlaug (1914-2009), a shining star in the history of global food security and mankind, who dreamt and led the Green Revolution.

On this day, exactly eight years ago, Syed Ahmadul Huq—a very well respected public servant, noted scholar, Sufi practitioner and philanthropist—bade us farewell leaving behind a rich legacy of his scholarly research and interpretative works of Sufi masters,

“In ordinary mirrors, you see only the reflections of what is visible about men, but my friend, artist Abul Mansur has created a mirror that reflects the invisible, the veiled. In Abul Mansur’s mirror, the real faces of masked men who roam amongst us, hiding their true agenda, get exposed in all of their monstrosity.” Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote this in his preface to Abul Mansur Ahmad’s “Aina” (Mirror), which pretty much sums up what the book is about.

What happened in August 1975 was a great tragedy perpetrated by an anti-people clique who did not want Bangladesh to move in the direction its people had desired it to take. The desire embodied a dream and an ideology, and for its fulfilment the people had

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman believed that: “To do anything great, one has to be ready to sacrifice and show one’s devotion. I believe that those who are not ready to sacrifice are not capable of doing anything worthy. To engage in politics in our country and to

Khandaker Mozammel Haque passed away early Thursday, August 8, 2019. Readers may know him for his contribution to the

It was May 1990. World renowned singer Feroza Begum was on a three-month tour of the United States as part of the first Nazrul Conference in North America. I had the rare privilege of accompanying her on the tour and observing a legendary personality from up close.