Mia Golam Porwar’s argument about 1971 does more than reinterpret history. It shifts the source, nature and ownership of responsibility. Imagine that armed men break into a house in the middle of the night. They kill members of the family, take some away, and force others to flee to the house next door. The neighbour gives them shelter, later supplies them with weapons, and eventually joins the fight himself. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Bangladesh has inherited a tax system that leans hardest on those least able to bear it. That was decades in the making, and it will not be undone in a single budget. But the goals are set, and much of the groundwork exists. With patience and a shared sense of purpose, the load can be spread more fairly, and the country can reach where it wants to go by raising what it needs. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Anyone who has waited at Shahjalal Airport for a baggage trolley knows the frustration is real. The shortage has stranded passengers for hours, and in February the state minister for civil aviation pushed for the purchase of 1,000 new trolleys. So when Major (retd) Akhtaruzzaman, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former MP, landed from Madinah on October 1 and met long delays for luggage and Zamzam water, he had a genuine grievance and a sympathetic audience. What he did with it is the problem. Read More: [Link in the comments]

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” asks Anton Chigurh, the main protagonist of the Oscar-winning movie No Country for Old Men -- and eight decades into its own rulebook, the United Nations might reasonably be asked the same question by every refugee, every displaced minority, every small state whose faith in the Charter has yet to be repaid in kind. It is against this question that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s address to the 81st UN General Assembly deserves close attention. Grounded in human security, it presents Bangladesh -- a country of modest material power -- as a potential normative powerhouse. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Brutal vigilantism and systemic lawlessness are not inherent cultural traits; they are the desperate symptoms of a public that has lost faith in a weaponized legal system. To step back from the abyss, Bangladesh must embrace procedural justice and rebuild trust from the ground up. Read More: [Link in the comments]

It appears that the source of several national anxieties has finally been identified: The economy, the environment, rivers, public order, and even the safety of Muslims in India have somehow converged on one problem, Durga Puja. Someone should probably inform Bangladesh Bank. The immediate controversy is straightforward. The government has extended the official holiday for Durga Puja. In response, a platform called Insaf Kayemkari Chhatra Sramik Janata has taken to the streets arguing, in essence, that Puja belongs to Hindus, not Muslims, and therefore there is no justification for giving Muslims a Puja holiday. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Due to various work assignments, I have been traveling across the roads and fields of the Kolkond char in Rangpur for the past few months. As I move along the paths cutting through the green fields, a sharp chemical odor constantly hits my nose. Whenever I look at the crop fields hoping for a soothing sight, I see someone spraying fertilizers and pesticides. When asked, they say crops are highly prone to diseases, making this chemical usage necessary. They believe it causes no collateral damage. Read More: [Link in the bio]

Stories come to me out of thin air. They come at their own will. I don’t really choose them. They come because of circumstances I find myself in, because of something I have witnessed, something I have felt, or something that has moved through me and refused to leave. They are deeply affected by the emotional landscape of my mind at the time they arrive. They also seem to come to push me from one chapter of my life to the next. Read More: [Link in the comments comments]

Upholding Islamic principles of animal welfare is a year-round mandate. Sacrifice is meant to align with stewardship during Eid al-Adha, along with a perennial commitment to animal well-being. The Lord of the universe has entrusted human beings with khilafah or stewardship over the creation. Acting with ethics, balance, compassion and justice toward all creation is both a sacred trust and a religious obligation. On Eid al-Adha, Muslims who are financially able are required to sacrifice a lawful animal, ensuring that the process is carried out without subjecting the animal to torture or trauma. Read More: [Link in the comments bio]

Beyond the open sides of the pavilion, the December dark gathered among the trees. A cool breeze drifted in from the garden, carrying the scent of crushed grass and, beneath it, the faint dampness of water; the lake somewhere past the wall, invisible, revealing itself only by its smell. Read More: [Link in the comments]

A house can be repainted. Its walls can be scrubbed, its portraits removed and its furniture replaced. The people who once occupied its rooms can leave, and before long, it may look as though an entirely different family has moved in. But appearances are deceptive. Some things do not live on the surface. They remain in the foundations, in the subterranean vaults no one thought to open and, sometimes, in the monolithic architecture itself. Bangladesh has spent the last two years trying to renovate. Read More: [Link in the comments]

In 1980s Dhaka, we grew up shadowed by an urban myth of the chic beauty salon, Mayfair, located in Dhanmondi Residential Area. A young and beautiful bride, coiffed with a false hair bun festooned by flowers as part of her bridal make up, keeled over and died at the wedding reception, bitten by mysterious, poisonous insects that had been nesting in Mayfair’s faux bun. Read More: [Link in the comments]

In September 2026, the United States sanctioned Russia's VTB Bank, passed new legislation authorizing tariffs on major buyers of Russian energy, and watched Russia and China block a UN mechanism that had monitored sanctions on Iran. Each of these events made headlines as a story about Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. But the more important story is happening far from any of those capitals. It is happening in Bangladesh, where fuel prices have risen, garment factories have faced power shortages, and the foreign-exchange reserves needed to pay for imported energy have come under fresh pressure. Read More: [Link in the comments bio]

A century ago, a journey from one country to another could take weeks, information travelled at the speed of ships and letters, and diseases that are routinely treated today could end lives without warning. Much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America was still trapped in colonial rule, poverty and illiteracy. Europe, meanwhile, was demonstrating that scientific advancement did not necessarily make human beings less destructive. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Desires do materialize in Rene Karabash's novel, but rarely in the shape in which they were desired. They have been altered by deprivation, obedience and fear. Reading this book produced a peculiar physical unease in me. I kept feeling the pressure of a life in which there is no acceptable way to be entirely oneself. The suffocation belongs to Bekija, certainly, but after a while it begins to belong to the reader too. Read More: [Link in the comments bio]

In the second chapter of R. F. Kuang’s Babel or The Necessity of Violence, there is a dialogue: “But that’s the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.” Language is perhaps one of the most political assets of the human kind. What are we without our words? What is our history, revolution, and destruction without our language? Read More: [Link in the comments]

My understanding of China was further shaped by my professional experiences. As an interpreter, I had opportunities to work with senior Chinese leaders, including Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji, and to interact with senior PLA personalities. Later, while serving as a UN military observer and team leader, I worked with international peacekeeping personnel, including Chinese colleagues. These experiences taught me that China’s development is not simply an economic story. It is also a story of long-term planning, human-resource development, institutional continuity and national confidence. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Last winter, Bangladesh's banking sector seemed to improve. Bangladesh Bank data indicated the gross non-performing loan ratio decreased from nearly 36% in September 2025 to 30.60% in December. In absolute figures, defaulted loans dropped from approximately Tk 6.44 trillion to Tk 5.57 trillion within a quarter. Read More: [Link in the comments]

In December 2023, shortly after the first preliminary licenses were issued, pi STRATEGY wrote that digital banking was unlikely to be the panacea many were hoping for. Nearly three years on, the country finds itself at the starting line once again. On September 24, Bangladesh Bank issued Letters of Intent (LoIs) to five proposed digital banks. The one full license granted in the first round was suspended shortly after the political changes of August 2024. Read More: [Link in the comments]

There are some deaths that do not allow a society to return comfortably to its normal life. The killing of a child is one of them. When an adult is murdered, we ask what happened, who did it and why. When a child is brutally killed, however, another question should haunt us: What kind of society allows a child to remain so unprotected? The recent killings of children in Cumilla and Dhaka, along with repeated reports of abuse in madrasas and other institutions, should therefore not be treated merely as a series of horrifying crimes. Read more: [Link in the comments]