For a party so image-conscious and so demanding of "clean image" from its candidates, Awami League surely knows how to make a muck of things and draw unflattering attention.

The idea of a justice system hinges on people’s faith in its ability to offer fair solutions. So justice, as the saying goes, should not only be done, but be seen to be done as well, so that people’s faith in it is kept intact.

It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a Pahela Baishakh in the middle of Ramadan. The convergence of the two occasions, not necessarily a clash of ideologies, begs appreciation of life in its many nuances and complexities.

In Dhaka, we don’t live anymore, we merely survive.

It’s like a scene from a Stephen King movie: a small passenger vessel being “devoured” by a cargo ship about 20 times its size.

If you think the social media tendency to obsess over trivial matters is problematic, be sure to highlight what’s causing it.

Apparently, it does. According to the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). And according to Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud.

In his first media briefing on February 28, 2022, the newly sworn-in Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal ticked almost all the right boxes.

Let me begin with the story of a thought experiment. I did this experiment with a concept known as perspective-taking.

For the government, the timing of the Sinha murder verdict on January 31 couldn’t have been worse, with increasing global scrutiny following a US sanction on RAB over allegations of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings.

What is the picture that flashes through your mind when someone talks of social classes? A reader of The Guardian newspaper once made an interesting albeit highly generalised observation.

A dramatic turn of events since the March 17 attack on Hindu villagers in Sunamganj’s Shalla Upazila has been reshaping the narrative on the culpability of potential actors and, by extension, the politics of communal violence in Bangladesh.

How well do you follow the headlines of your newspapers? If one were to run a quiz to see how well the readers of The Daily Star stack up against each other, the question that is most likely to be at the top of the list would be about the name that appeared most in the headlines of our central pages over the last week.

What is the first image that comes to your mind when you think of the word “development”? I see an image of a signboard, and it’s about the Metro Rail (MRT Line-6) being constructed in Mirpur, connecting different parts of the metropolis.

I remember there was a time when, owing to my youthful naiveté, I would think that living is more than surviving.

On Friday, November 6, the first madrasa for transgender Muslims in Bangladesh was opened in Dhaka through a private initiative.

Late in the evening on November 1, 2020, journalist Golam Sarwar, who went missing on October 29, was found unconscious near a canal at Sitakunda, Chattogram.

In an article in August 2018, I argued that emerging political leaders, because of the unique socioeconomic reality in which they grew up, might be more likely to accept change and less likely to default to norms and practices pursued by their boomer predecessors.

It could have been just another episode in the regular show of police and ruling party men merrily clamping down on the “disturbers of public peace” who love to play with people’s emotions with their pesky ideas and noisy chants of human rights abuses.

From harsh legal penalties to severe moral reprimands, from street protests and sit-ins to virtual seminars and teach-ins, from increasing mobilisation and visibilisation of pro-choice activists to critical interventions by state and non-state actors—nothing, and no one, seems to be able to deter the rapists or protect women and children.