Communication is now one of the most decisive forces governing the state in Bangladesh. Policymaking, administrative control, and conventional political management remain as necessary as ever, but they are no longer enough on their own. Today, a rumour can spread faster than an official instruction.

Despite remarkable progress in child survival, newborn deaths remain a major challenge in Bangladesh. According to recent estimates, about 60,000 newborns die each year in the country, with nearly three-quarters of these deaths occurring in the first week of life.

Last month, three special days of observation occurred in succession.

I woke up before dawn on Wednesday to a call from my younger sister, Nazia. The ICU doctors had asked that the family come in. A quiet fear settled in my chest.

Last week, while buying vegetables from an open market, I could not help feeling dissatisfied over the hiked price of every item. “It seems you are still in a moon-sighting mode,” I said, to which the seller responded nonchalantly, “What can I do?

Designing better policies in times of crisis is not the challenge, but designing them for real behaviour is.

The ongoing measles outbreak in Bangladesh continues to raise public health concerns.

As in previous years, this Eid holiday has also seen a large number of people killed and injured in road crashes. Even though people are being killed and injured on the roads every day, we rarely see victims and their families receiving compensation.

Like the rest of the world, Bangladesh is currently grappling with the geopolitics-led energy supply disruption, described by the International Energy Agency (IEA) as the biggest ever threat to energy security.

Access to healthcare is a human right and a cornerstone of universal health coverage (UHC).

Bangladesh has long promoted domestic manufacturing as the cornerstone of its development strategy.

The current approach has kept conditions stable for now, but it also risks something closer to Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of recurrence, where what is unresolved does not disappear.

The 2026-27 budget comes at a critical moment for the country.

The heat is returning to Bangladesh with more intensity. Daytime temperatures are already becoming difficult to tolerate, and for many, fans are no longer enough.

The parliament’s ongoing review of the interim government’s 133 ordinances is perhaps the first real test of whether the July uprising has changed only the occupants of power, or the logic of power itself.

When it comes to our healthcare sector, the BNP government faces the dual challenge of meeting the high public expectations set by its election manifesto while ensuring that the existing system delivers tangible benefits immediately.

There is a dangerous tendency in Dhaka’s policy circles to treat conflicts in distant theatres as someone else’s problem. The war involving Iran is the latest test of that complacency—and Bangladesh cannot afford to fail it.

A digital platform could allow madrasa graduates to maintain verified professional profiles linked to their institutions and qualifications.

Bangladesh may be standing at a generational moment of constitutional possibility.

Irregular migrations also impact the credibility of the Bangladeshi passport, whose value has effectively deteriorated. Consequently, even travellers with valid visas are now subjected to heightened scrutiny and extensive questioning at immigration checkpoints.