AS THE Shanghai Cooperation Organisation prepares to convene its 25th Heads of State Council summit in Tianjin on August 31, 2025, the mood is one of cautious optimism, shaped by geopolitical turbulence, but anchored in a sense of historical inevitability. Under China鈥檚 rotating chairmanship, the SCO has not only survived the headwinds of global disorder but...
THE University of Dhaka authorities鈥� decision to deploy the army as a 鈥榮triking force鈥� during the Dhaka University Central Students鈥� Union elections, scheduled for September 9, is both humiliating and alarming. The announcement came at an exchange of views between the returning officers and the candidates for the positions of vice-president, general secretary and...
IN 2013, the tragic Rana Plaza incident shook the whole country, killing thousands of workers. The tragedy turned the lives of thousands of families upside down. Structural cracks in the building were discovered the day before the incident, but factory owners made their workers come for work. Section 61 of the Labour Act, 2006, instructs that when a building is required...
THE images remain vivid: Narendra Modi clasping Donald Trump鈥檚 hand before a roaring crowd of Indian Americans in Houston in 2019; the 鈥楴amaste Trump鈥� rally in Ahmedabad the following year, replete with pageantry, promises and mutual admiration. For many in New Delhi, these spectacles signalled the arrival of a new era 鈥� an India finally embraced as...
DEBRA Efroymson鈥檚 August 23 article, 鈥楯oys of Walking,鈥� presents a compelling vision of urban life in Dhaka as a struggle between pedestrians and the so-called 鈥榯hree-headed monster鈥� of cars, roads and fuel. While her enthusiasm for pedestrian-friendly cities is clear, her analysis is overly idealistic and overlooks the complex realities of urban mobility, social behaviour and...
FOUR Al Jazeera journalists, including globally admired correspondent Anas al-Sharif, were killed in Gaza in an Israeli air strike on Aug 10...
A SINGLE district police memo tells the story. The language of 鈥榩ermission first,鈥� the stress on 鈥榦rders,鈥� the presumption that authority flows in one direction: these are not quirks of one officer on one day. They are the reflexes of a legal order built to govern subjects rather than to serve citizens. Much of Bangladesh鈥檚 day-to-day criminal justice still runs on statutes...
CYBER-BULLYING in campus politics has become an organised assault on democracy that universities can no longer afford to ignore. In the lead-up to the Dhaka University Central Students鈥� Union election on September 9 and the Jahangirnagar University Central Students鈥� Union election on September 11, female candidates face a torrent of online harassment designed to keep...
THE findings of a multidimensional survey that the finance ministry has funded to assess how families coped with issues of income, employment, expenditure, financial resilience and digital participation in one year since the 2024 uprising are worrying. The poverty rate increased to 27.93 per cent in May 2025, as the survey that research and policy advocacy organisation Power...
THE statutory audit of financial statements 鈥� mandated by law 鈥� is a critical function to ensure transparency, accountability and stakeholder confidence. Globally, the right to perform statutory audits is restricted to professionals who meet rigorous legal, technical and ethical standards, often under a formal 鈥榗harter鈥� or licensing regime...
ISRAEL war of genocide is not about October 7; it is not about freeing Israeli captives. It is, first and foremost, about preserving a racist Jewish governing coalition and seizing a historic opportunity while a submissive administration in Washington looks the other way. The aim is to advance a biblical expansionist project and create the conditions for 鈥榮elf鈥� ethnic cleansing...
