Amidst nationwide protests against the existing quota system in public service recruitment, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced

Throughout history, people have turned to astrologers, pundits and gurus in their quest to unlock the mysteries of the future.

This year's Independence Day has come with a new sense of pride and the hope of a promising future. Our country's move from low-income country (LIC) status to lower-middle-income country (LMIC), as per the World Bank's classification, has created hopes that Bangladesh's economic development will go a long way in the upcoming years.

RESEARCH increasingly demonstrates that poor customers, just like other customers, value their privacy and care deeply about the protection of their personal data. But what do providers think about obtaining, using, storing and sharing personally identifiable information?

Bangladesh's youth have done it again. The cause they stood for was fair and just; they remained resolute in their stand and united against all odds. For years, they waited for the revision of archaic provisions of public services recruitment procedure that privileged less competent ones over the meritorious. Years passed by, governments changed, Public Service Commission leadership changed, recommendations of various committees and commissions that argued in favour of amendment fell on deaf ears, and finally, patience of the youth ran out.

There has been a healthy debate as to whether Bangladesh should open up Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the apparel sector where, until now, the majority of investors are local entrepreneurs, with the exception of some foreign companies who have invested in garment businesses inside the Export Processing Zones (EPZs).

At the heart of South Asia's poor integration is India-Pakistan rivalry, further complicated by China-Pakistan proximity and India-China hostility.

It is easily conceivable that BBC would run a special feature titled “Dhaka: The City That Once Was” in 2071 as it celebrates 100 years of Bangladesh's independence. Dhaka's liveability, or lack thereof, is already a subject of much interest. But how do we avoid that near-certain predicament 50 years down the road? What can we do today?

Huge drum rolls and pageantry surrounded the recent celebrations of International Women's Day. We can obviously feel enlightened on this front, having women as the chief executive of the government and that of the parliament.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has put the issue of fake news into spotlight again. It has also renewed conversations as to how best prevent fake news peddlers from manipulating democracies.

The recent announcement by a German foundation that Bangladesh is no longer a democracy has caused a stir in national and international media. The Bertelsmann Foundation, which tracks democracy around the globe, published its latest report showing that Bangladesh has slipped in its “democracy Index” measurement and has joined four other countries, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Uganda in the category of “new” autocracies.

Children who are in grade one today will be in grade twelve, the final year of high school, in 2030. The Sustainable Development Goal number 4 (SDG4 out of 17 global SDGs) is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all by 2030. Where do we stand in reaching the education goals to which Bangladesh is committed?

When my twins were in their early months, during our visits to the paediatrician, I remember his concern about my daughter who appeared to be frail and weak. On the other hand, he would give my son a cursory glance and a brief check-up before reconfirming how healthy he was. Interestingly, my son started showing signs of autism from an early age, which gradually became worse while my daughter was

The title of this piece is not just a cliché, but also a fact. Over the past two decades, Bangladesh has been experiencing an impressive economic growth.

Writers are not usually the most beloved of creatures to those who know them. The reason, as Samaresh Majumdar once explained, has something to do with how they source material for their writings. He said he collected material from real-life events, social gatherings and personal anecdotes confided in him, and used that in his novels, sometimes to the chagrin of his sources.

Peace is often defined as the absence of violence, conflict, hostility, or war. Yet this definition is not only derogatory, but also deceptive. Peace is not merely the absence of violence; it is the vanquishing of oppression by independence—the victory of justice over injustice. You cannot separate peace from freedom, because a man cannot have his peace unless he has his freedom. If an oppressive society lacks violence, the society is nonetheless not peaceful, because of the injustice fuelled through oppression.

THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology Review has an interesting article this March titled "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Turns out it's just chance", featuring Alessandro Pluchino's computer simulation to explore how people become wealthy.

Slowly but surely the world is coming to terms with the gruesome reality of Burma's genocide of the Rohingyas. As early as 2015 London Queen Mary College's State Crimes Initiative alerted the international community of the ongoing genocide in Arakan. Hardly anyone paid heed to that ominous warning.

A budding computer scientist pursuing a PhD at the McMaster University, Canada recently wrote a blog post on the increasing human capacity for self-destruction enabled by science. First, it was the atomic bomb created by physicists, then it was the nerve gas created by chemists, and now the neural networks created by cyber nerds that pump enormous power into artificial intelligence bots—bots that can take over our lives, manipulate our behaviour, and pretty much get us to do anything they please.

Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh War (2011) appears to be shaded by unrealistic assumptions, preconceived non-factual notions, myths and an unclear agenda. There is also a severe deficiency of clarity. In this context, I would like to highlight the following points with the hope that the author, Sarmila Bose, would revise her book based on a factual analysis of what really happened.