26,695 rape cases filed in last 5 years

A total of 26,695 rape cases have been filed across the country in the past five years, said a short report submitted by the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to the High Court yesterday.
3 March 2021

Rohingya Relocation: Another 3,800 on way to Bhasan Char

The government is going to relocate around 3,800 more Rohingyas to Bhasan Char by tomorrow from different refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.
2 March 2021

Louis Kahn's Capital Complexity

The National Capital Complex in Dhaka, designed by Louis Kahn, is an epic work in the annals of modern architecture. Even after sixty years of its conception, Kahn’s complex remains a wondrous phenomenon that is continuously renewing the purposes of architecture.
28 February 2021

Kahn's Journey to the National Assembly Building

What Einstein’s E=mc2 is for physicists, Louis I Kahn’s “Silence and Light” is for architects. Kahn’s lecture on “Silence and Light” in 1969, five years before his death, was the recapitulation of his collective thoughts based on metaphysical reasoning that he considered a key to his point of view, applicable to all works of art, including architecture.
28 February 2021

BENGALI TYPES AND THEIR FOUNDERS

While in London about the year 1770, William Bolts required some types for printing in Bengali. Such types were non-existent, and the type foundry of Joseph Jackson was engaged to prepare a font. In I773 or I774 he suddenly left for India, and the types remained behind.
21 February 2021

Old Bangla prose

The history of Bangla prose is generally described from the beginning of the nineteenth century. But most scholars agree that some examples of Bangla prose can be found from the sixteenth centuries.
20 February 2021

Covid Vaccination: Minimum age to remain 40

The minimum age for Covid-19 vaccination will remain 40 for now, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said yesterday.
17 February 2021

Chobi Mela (0): Redefining photo festivals for the post-COVID era

The Drik-Path building peeks into the sky in the middle of the busy commercial area of Panthapath, Dhaka. This is where Chobi Mela Shunno (0) is taking place this year.
14 February 2021

DSA must be abolished

With cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore and writer Mushtaq Ahmed behind bars for more than nine months, a group of citizens, including teachers and rights activists, staged demonstrations at the city’s Central Shaheed Minar yesterday demanding abolishment of the controversial Digital Security Act (DSA).
13 February 2021

Myanmar coup: How the military has held onto power for 60 years

The military once again hold the reins of power in Myanmar. Citing constitutional provisions that give the military control in national emergencies, army officers detained government leaders in the early hours of February 1 2021, including state counsellor and popular national leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
7 February 2021

Deshpriya Jatindra Mohan & Nellie Sengupta

The following story unfolds in a prominent zamindar (feudal landlord) family of the Senguptas, in the then remote and obscure sleepy little village of Barama,
31 January 2021

The Angry Young World

This article considers student activism at Dhaka University in the 1960s as a case study for considering student politics at multiple scales: local, regional, and international. In addition to providing a historical narrative of Dhaka’s engagement in the Mass upsurge campaign that led to the end of the Ayub Kahn regime,
24 January 2021

What's so special about Bengal?

If you are looking for ancient history, Bengal’s achievements are clearly limited. The Indus Valley Civilization that immensely enriched the sub-continent in the third and second millennia BC hardly reached Bengal. No part of the Vedas and the Upanishads is known to have been composed in Bengal.
17 January 2021

History of the Greek community in Dhaka

A small yellow building that looks a little like a Greek temple faces the campus wall near the Teacher-Student Center of Dhaka University.
10 January 2021

The Sundarban Plan

Tilman Henckell [Judge and Magistrate of Jessore] at an early period of his magistracy, turned his attention to the Sundarbans, and he was the founder of the system of reclamation which is now converting these great forests into immense rice tracts.
3 January 2021

The Enduring Enigma of Columbo Sahib!

It stands proudly as a silent sentinel - forsaken, forlorn, dilapidated - entwined in the vicious vice-grip of invasive vegetation – serpentine vines and clinging creepers - that threaten to bring it down anytime sooner than later.
27 December 2020

President of the Poor

He is the “president of the people”, more precisely the “president of the poor people”.
20 December 2020

The Brave Doctor

The idea of death is feared by many but it is not in our control – perhaps only to a certain extent. Various life decisions we make play a big part in determining our fate.
13 December 2020

Imagining a Dhaka for 2035

No one doubts the magnitude of complexity that shrouds Dhaka, this city of 16 million poised between being the worst liveable and an economic colossus.
13 December 2020

‘We are the 95%’: Bhashani and the Kagmari Festival

In 2011, people reclaimed the streets, parks and public spaces in major financial districts across the world as part of the Occupy Movement.
11 December 2020