Ali Riaz

The suggestion of the parliamentary public administration standing committee members for a “logical reform” to the existing quota system in the civil service system should be considered as a positive step towards the resolution of the ongoing debate on the quota system.

WITH no street agitations or unexpected turn of events, and with the ruling party's firm grip over the situation, 2017 was politically a relatively calm year. But it was neither uneventful nor inconsequential.

The statement by the Bangladesh Supreme Court, issued a day after Chief Justice SK Sinha left Dhaka for Australia on “leave”, raises questions one can hardly avoid.

The unanim-ously adopted press statement of the UN Security Council (UNSC) condemning violence in Myanmar at the closed-door meeting on Wednesday is encouraging but unlikely to deter the Myanmar government from continuing its heinous acts of ethnic cleansing.

While it is encouraging to know that Bangladesh has taken diplomatic initiatives to bring the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis to the international fora, the question is whether it has devised a strategy to go forward.

We call '1947' a phenomenon. Although often referred to as 'the Partition' for convenience, it is hard to settle on an agreed description. How should one describe 1947?

The “verdict” was already known to all of us; the appellate division of the Supreme Court upheld the verdict of the High Court (HC) that the 16th Amendment of the Constitution is “illegal and unconstitutional.”

On the anniversary of the audacious terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, Bangladeshis may ask two questions: “Are we safer today than we were a year before?” and “Where do we go from here?”

Democracy International (DI) has recently published its latest Bangladesh Opinion poll. A quick look at the results provides good news for the ruling party.

December 6 is observed as 'Democracy Day' in Bangladesh, a day that marks the overthrow of military rule of General H M Ershad through a popular urban uprising in 1990.

The killing of Tamim Chowdhury, the alleged 'mastermind' of the terrorist attack on July 1 at Holy Artisan Café in Dhaka and the failed bomb attack at Sholakia on July 7, is a breakthrough in the ongoing counter-terrorism efforts in Bangladesh. Chowdhury was identified as the key planner of these attacks and according to the ISIS propaganda magazine; he was 'the Emir' of the Bangladesh chapter of the Islamic State.

As targeted killings of individuals with unorthodox views and members of minority communities continue unabated in Bangladesh, so