The usual pace of human life has suddenly come to a halt, thanks to an invisible organism. A novel form of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has completely changed our lives in just a few months.

Over three decades ago, in 1988, March 8 was first observed in Bangladesh as International Women’s Day. The women’s movement has always been deeply rooted in this society.

Throughout human history, people have claimed and controlled nature and have built empires of civilisations.

In the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario. When an epidemic spreads beyond a country’s borders, that’s when the disease officially becomes a pandemic.

It is years ago now. The day I took a bus to the southernmost tip of Bangladesh with a group of people wearing khaki-coloured shirts, two-in-one pants, carrying heavy duty binoculars, spotting scopes and talking excitedly about a bird.

Amidst much fanfare, US President Donald Trump officially unveiled his long awaited “Deal of the Century”—the plan for resolving the century-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict—on January 28.

What distinctly separated Bengal from most of the other regions of India was the generous endowment of nature, nurtured and sustained by the mighty rivers flowing down the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal.

Behind his big glasses and mischievous smile hid over 50 years of experience in publishing. Very few people would be able to claim the same kind of knowledge and understanding of the ins and outs of publishing as Mohiuddin Ahmed, Emeritus Publisher and Director, The University Press Limited.

Visionary duo Rajeeb and Nadia Samdani, the cofounders of the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF), has been organising Dhaka Art Summit biennially since 2012.

Uniting artists from three nations, Homelands: Art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan was inaugurated at Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, UK, on November 12, 2019.

Hashi Chakraborty, nickname Bachchu. I only heard his mother call him by this name when she used to come to Bangladesh to visit her son. He was born in his maternal uncle’s home in Gournadi (1948) and grew up in Barisal in his own house.

At Kamini Mohan (K.M.) Das Lane in Tikatuli of Old Dhaka, there lies a majestic mansion called “Rose Garden”. Interestingly, it was built to host parties by one of the prominent zamindars of Dhaka, named Hrishikesh Das. He built the Rose Garden in 1931 on a 22-bigha plot along with a famous garden that had various species of rare roses. Thus the compound earned the name “Rose Garden”. The central piece of the garden is the elegant building.

Kim Dovey is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub InfUr–.

The year 1860 holds great significance for Dhaka’s cultural history. It saw the first printing press—Bangla Mudran Jantra—being set up in Dhaka, the publication of the first ever Bangla novel Nil Darpan, and also the introduction of Dhaka’s first periodical Kabita Kusumabali.

Tutankhamun is probably the most famous king of the age of antiquity in the modern world. A teenage pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of the ancient Egypt, who started to rule the Egyptian kingdom at the age of nine when Egypt was at its golden age, managed to rule only 11 years and died at the age of 19.

It is often repeated that the ‘founding fathers’ of the Armenian church in Dacca were Messrs Sarkies, Kevorke, Pogose and Petrus respectively. Numerous reports tell us the land was donated by ‘Armenian nobleman Agha Catchick Minas’ (also known as Agha Catchik Emnias). Let’s explore some of these individuals and take a peek into a small period of their lives.

The medieval mosques of Bengal transformed from socio-political spaces to more socio-cultural zones. The mosques became part of the neighbourhood’s culture, with participation from both men and women.

November 29 marked the 72nd anniversary of UN Resolution 181 (II) to end the British mandate in Palestine and the historic decision to partition Palestine and establish, after a transition period, “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.” For the Palestinians, this was the origin of the “Nakba” (catastrophe).

Four exhibitions in four different locations of the world, with one in Bangladesh, demonstrate the new vibrancy propelling architectural production and thinking in Bangladesh.

The world knows late Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw as the man who, as the chief of the Indian army in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War following the Bangladesh Liberation War, made great contributions to the creation of Bangladesh.