The Yellow Butterfly: How Sheba shaped my world growing up
18 August 2026
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In Focus
What Bangladesh’s historic Test victory in Australia means for Bangladeshi-Australians
17 August 2026
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In Focus
Remembering Sumit Sarkar, a historian who questioned orthodoxy
17 August 2026
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In Focus
The unfinished histories of Partition
16 August 2026
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In Focus
In conversation with William Dalrymple / ‘Britain didn't conquer India’
15 August 2026
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In Focus
Sheikh Mujib’s killing: What the newspapers told and what they omitted
15 August 2026
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In Focus
Mirrors of Empire / The bureaucrats and intellectuals who shaped the Mughal Empire
14 August 2026
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In Focus
To feel Bengali, to think beyond Bengal: Dipankar Gupta in conversation
11 August 2026
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In Focus
Bangladesh's visual history / The enduring allure of vintage photographs
10 August 2026
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In Focus
The enduring legacy of the 2nd Bangladesh Liberation War Course
7 August 2026
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In Focus
History and the Birangona
In December 1971, East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh after a nine-month war with West Pakistan and their local Bengali collaborators.
20 June 2021
Remembering the Battle of Bhomra
Hell had broken loose. The sky above the Bhomra bund of Satkhira suddenly turned bright, thunderous colours going in all directions.
13 June 2021
A photographer named Fritz Kapp
It was in the early 1980s, that I became aware of Frederick Fritz Kapp popularly known as Fritz Kapp, a German photographer through his photographs printed in a book published from Calcutta.
6 June 2021
How the Mukti Bahini was trained
On May 1, 1971, General SHFJ Manekshaw issued the Indian Army Operational Instruction No. 52. A structured policy to provide training facilities and logistical and operational support for the liberation of Bangladesh was prepared by Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) Eastern Command.
23 May 2021
The current status of Jerusalem
This is an excerpt of the paper delivered by Edward Said, author of the famous book Orientalism, at a conference on Jerusalem held in London on 15-16 June, 1995.
16 May 2021
Ray and His Political Films
“Films cannot change society. They never have. Show me a film that changed society or brought about any change,” said master director Satyajit Ray in an interview for the American magazine Cineaste more than three decades ago.
9 May 2021
The early history of press freedom in Bengal
In mid-eighteenth century Mughal India, slowly but surely, the old was giving way to the new in complex ways.
2 May 2021
The myth of martial race: Seared into a schoolboy's memory!
The years 1968-1969, were a tumultuous period in the political history of the state of Pakistan. My father a Bengali civil servant from East Pakistan, was an official in the then central government in Islamabad.
18 April 2021
The End of Empire: The meanings of Jallianwala Bagh
It has often been said that Britain lost its empire the day when, one hundred [two] years ago, 55-year old Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, commanding a regiment of 50 Gurkha and Baluchi riflemen,
11 April 2021
Bengali Muslims and their identity: From fusion to confusion
One of the grand paradoxes facing Bangladeshis is expressed in the negotiations and contestations on the simple question about who they are, particularly in the context of the strains caused by the Universalist claims of their religion on the one hand and the particularist demands of their ethnicity and culture on the other.
4 April 2021
“Operation Jackpot brought us three steps closer to liberation”
On March 7, 1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman stood at the Ramna Race Course and faced a gathering of over 10 lakh people.
1 April 2021
The Historian and the Riflemen
On the evening of the 25th of March of 1971, Yahya Khan, third President of Pakistan, was driven from an elegant, storied house at 22,
28 March 2021
The 1971 war, caste, citizenship and a war memorial in Tharparkar
Perhaps the only memorial for the martyrs of the 1971 war in Pakistan stands quietly and forgotten near the village Barach, about 25 kilometers southeast of Mithi, the desert district headquarters of Tharparkar.
27 March 2021
The birth of Bangladesh and nationality question in South Asia
26 March 1971 is a significant date in South Asian subcontinent not simply because Bengali majority of Pakistan decided to assert a right to secede in the face of brutal military crackdown but also because the very fundamental framework of the parameter of nation formation in South Asian subcontinent had been altered.
21 March 2021
No student can be tortured, intimidated
The High Court yesterday observed that no student can be tortured, intimidated and pressurised physically or mentally as per an earlier directive of the court .
14 March 2021
When Gandhi's Salt March Rattled British Colonial Rule
Since the late-1910s, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had been at the forefront of India’s quest to shake off the yoke of British colonial domination, otherwise known as the “Raj.”
14 March 2021
One in three women endure abuse: WHO
One in three women have already suffered physical violence or sexual abuse, the World Health Organization said, warning that the coronavirus pandemic was deepening the problem.
10 March 2021
Why no dedicated rail carriages for women
The High Court, in a rule, yesterday asked the authorities why a special compartment should not be allocated for female passengers and separate reserved seats for children, physically challenged passengers, and senior citizens in every train for ensuring their privacy and security.
10 March 2021
Bhashani’s support for non-cooperation movement
Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani addressed a mass gathering at Paltan Maidan on March 9. In his address, he proclaimed full support to the ongoing non-cooperation movement and called upon the people to continue the struggle unless success was achieved.
8 March 2021
50 years later, the fight goes on
When speaking about our Liberation War of 1971, we often commend our freedom fighters for their sacrifices and bravery and condemn the then Pakistan army for inflicting inhumane torture on our innocent people, especially our women.
7 March 2021