Aasha Mehreen Amin

You have to hand it to the former general/president. Nobody can really match the age-defying, flamboyant showstopper like Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad.

The paradox of silence is that it only accentuates the sound of things you may not want to hear. The silence I am talking about here is the institutional refusal to acknowledge, let alone address an unsavoury truth.

Just when you thought you knew what the most significant news of the day was – West Bengal Chief Minister's rejection of the Teesta...

For the majority of communities in this country, the idea of a woman inheriting more than a man is ludicrous, even equally is rarely accepted. But there have been instances where through legal channels brothers and sisters have shared their parents' wealth equally without any kind of acrimony.

The government's success in busting militant dens in various parts of the country is commendable and reveals its determination to root out terrorist outfits. But it also reveals some chilling facts.

It's always a challenge to come up with a piece for International Women's Day that will not sound clichéd and filled with lofty recommendations that are bound to make policy makers and anti feminists (if they have even deigned to read this at all) yawn with

Is it just me or is everyone around me going a bit cuckoo?! And I'm not talking about the lawmaker who thought it was grand to walk

It could be over who gets to play in the field that day or who should be occupying the alleys to intimidate passersby. It could be because the harassment of a girl was protested. Or because a 'proposal' was rejected. It could be just about anything that can trigger brutality in a youngster.

It was an expression of outrage against the apparent acceptability of anti-woman rhetoric, racial discrimination, religious intolerance and insularity, diseases that keep thriving across the globe.

Our correspondent from Moulvibazar started his report with ‘believe it or not’ and truly this story is shocking. An elected Union Parishad member who is apparently quite popular in the community does not have a place to live and therefore is forced to make her home under a bridge on Dhaka Sylhet highway.

Aging and quirkiness are like Siamese twins and can seldom be separated. This is why as you grow older you will inadvertently acquire a good dose of crankiness and a bucketful of eccentricities that the young (and cruel) will snicker about behind your back.

I think the biggest lesson we learnt in 2016 is that we have been living in a bubble of delusion - about the kind of world we live in.

Idon't know what I would be going through if I had been a Hindu resident of Brahmanbaria's Nasirnagar, and now recently of Bochaganj, Dinajpur, where at least 20 Hindu houses have been torched, if my house or that of my Hindu relatives or neighbours had been attacked by a few hundred frenzied men who unleashed their hatred by vandalising, looting and setting everything on fire.

Nasirnagar seems to be a place where no matter how many facts are unearthed by relentlessly inquisitive journalists, the administration manages to come up with a completely different reality.

Perhaps we were a bit delusional in thinking that there was a consensus regarding the fact that child marriage, that is marriage of a girl under 18, would be considered a social evil that should be completely shunned in our country.

To say that the US elections this year has been the most dramatic would be an understatement.

It is perhaps the greatest environmental love story of all. Saalumarada Thimmakka, a day labourer and Bekal Chikkayya, a cattle herder, both from Hulikal village in Bangalore district, defying all the taunts from society for being childless, decided to plant trees and treat them like their children.

It is a mindboggling mystery how, after such a hue and cry over the vicious attacks on homes, property and temples of Hindus in Brahmanbaria’s Nasirnagar, unknown miscreants have had the audacity to carry out another arson attack – this time the target was on Nasirnagar’s Upazila Parishad’s Vice Chairman who is Hindu and who protested against the October 30 mayhem.

No matter how apathetic the larger part of our society is about violence against women, very few citizens of this country (except of course pedophiles who commit the crimes) will not be disgusted and horrified when little children are sexually abused and tortured.

It may be prohibited by law (Dowry prohibition Act, 1980) but demanding dowry for deigning to marry a girl from a less fortunate family is considered a normal entitlement of males in society.