AT THE start of 2025, Sudan registered an alarming debt-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio of 252 per cent. This means that the country鈥檚 total public debt is 2.5 times the size of its entire annual economic output. It is not hard to understand why Sudan is in such dire straits: as we outlined in last week鈥檚 newsletter, the country has been engulfed in a conflict for...
WHEN the government forcefully evicted sex workers from the brothels of Tanbazar, Narayanganj, in 1999, they did so under the guise of 鈥榬ehabilitation鈥�, claiming it was to rescue women from violence and exploitation. But for those of us who stood witness, it felt like a cruel betrayal masked as benevolence. I was an undergraduate student of anthropology then 鈥� young..
CRIMINOLOGY offers a lens through which we can understand the motivations behind criminal behaviour and the psychological traits that predispose individuals to crime. A recent Netflix series, Adolescence, dramatises the story of a 13-year-old who commits murder. However, such portrayals are no longer confined to fiction. Bangladesh is witnessing a disturbing...
IF DANTE had been born in Dhaka, I suspect he wouldn鈥檛 have written about nine circles of hell 鈥� he would have simply described a morning commute involving the BRTA and a short stroll along a Bangladeshi footpath. Because truly, what else but infernal suffering could explain a place where getting a driving licence requires divine intervention, a briefcase full of...
INDIA has unilaterally pushed several hundred people into Bangladesh through several border areas, which is unacceptable because it goes against accepted border management guidelines and diplomatic standards. India has continued pushing people into Bangladesh since May 7, when a war-like situation prevailed between India and Pakistan. Of the fresh push-in incidents...
THE ongoing spate of protests by officials and employees, along with the resulting disruption in services and administrative activities across various government offices, is a cause for concern. These protests highlight fundamental issues with the government鈥檚 approach to implementing reforms and amending existing laws. On May 25, government officials and political...
NOT long ago, artificial intelligence made headlines for what many described as a creative breakthrough. OpenAI鈥檚 GPT-4 ranked in the top one per cent on standardised creative thinking assessments 鈥� those same tests used to measure human originality and problem-solving. Around the same time, an Artifical Intelligence generated song that mimicked the...
CONSEQUENT to the escalated Zionist genocide of Indigenous Palestinian people, and after a blockade of all goods since the beginning of March 2025, Gaza is experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis, with widespread food scarcity and starvation among its population. Human rights organizations and international agencies report the Israeli blockade has led to...
THE fag end of Secondary School Certificate and equivalent examinations have seen record number of student having been from the examinations halls that actually began with the first day when 26,928 students were absent although registered for the examiantios. The examinations began on April 10 and the theoretical exams ended on May 13 and that day 31,55...
AS A transnational feminist scholar of social movements, when the Women鈥檚 Affairs Reform Commission鈥檚 report came out on April 19, I became keen on reviewing the 433 recommendations under 15 thematic areas. I was initially a bit frustrated to see that the report primarily focused on 鈥榚quality between women and men鈥�...
THE Industrial Police has identified 198 apparel factories to be risky where the payment of wages and the festival allowance may remain uncertain before Eid-ul-Azha, likely to be celebrated in the first week of June. The police say that the number of factories, in the preliminary list so far, that might not pay wages and the allowance in time could finally vary. The apparel...
The meetings of the chief adviser to the interim government with political parties on May 24, presumably aimed at resolving the ongoing political and other crises that had led the increasingly frustrated chief adviser to consider resignation, appear not to have decisively eased the stalemate. Conflicting demands from various political parties, especially the...
A COUPLE of weeks after Israel began its campaign of terror in Gaza two Octobers ago, a journalist and novelist named Omar El Akkad published a note on X, formerly known as Twitter, that has stayed with me ever since:...
THE ravages of nature are becoming an unrelenting part of rural life. Sudden storms, untimely rains, long droughts and devastating floods 鈥� these extreme weather events strike at the heart of peaceful villages, stripping away not only livelihoods but the rhythms of daily life. In a country like Bangladesh, where agriculture remains the backbone of the economy, the...
Failing to satisfy citizens鈥� expectations of democracy leads to serious societal problems, including the intensification of conflict. This is a finding from research (a collaborative research with SOAS, University of London, exploring parliament and public engagement) that my colleagues and I conducted in Bangladesh from 2014 to 2017. In Bangladesh, the 2018 quota...