Mahmudul H Sumon

What skills? Who decides what is relevant for our education system?

Sharing news on social media is the newest and perhaps one of the fastest-growing “rituals” of the world. When introduced to the internet nearly two decades ago, an academic relative of mine in the US, whom we would otherwise consider progressive,

Our public universities are mostly engaged in building buildings. I mean concrete buildings! Even when a simple structure such as a bus stop is built in our universities, we see structures and designs with an abundance of rod and cement.

The Tazreen factory fire in 2012 and the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013 have, amidst all the needless destruction and devastations of lives, at least brought Bangladesh’s apparel industry under some kind of scrutiny.

One morning I read an article, published in one of the most widely read newspapers of Dhaka, suggesting that all the negative news on Bangladesh's garments sector damages not only the owners but workers too. That afternoon, I decided to visit a garments factory in Mirpur—a small factory with 400 workers. My intention was to inquire about the status of maternity benefits and what exists in practice.

In certain kinds of literature on NGO activities in Bangladesh—documents, annual/mid-term reviews, etc.—there is often this fascination for numbers and numerical figures.

From the insiders of the RMG sector, there is an indication that both the Accord on Fire and Building Safety (hereafter the Accord) and