According to media reports, Tabith Awal remains as BNP's man in the Dhaka North mayoral polls, while Awami League is set to choose Atiqul Islam as its candidate.

Corruption is eating away at vital public services in Asia and the Pacific and it is the poor who are disproportionately paying the price.

Competitive examinations are a long-standing and important fact of life for our youth entering public service. But few know that the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2009 can play an effective role to ensure that these exams are transparent and fair.

Winter is a great time for the replenishment of academia in Bangladesh when many Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB) academics alight on our shores for both personal and professional reasons.

I have been walking around Dhaka, kind of randomly, for the past few months. It was not for health reasons. I was mostly interested in doing a personal assessment of the capital city's walkability.

Bangladesh is on the path to be a middle-income country by 2021 which is well articulated in the government's development plans for the next few years.

Former US President Barack Obama has recently joined a growing chorus of critics of social media.

My postgraduate classroom was filled with teachers and social workers. Self-proclaimed idealists. Once, during a highly theoretical discussion, someone made a comment about how we are not all as selfless as we claim.

Dear 2017, There are so many things I want to tell you that I don't know where to begin.

The year 2017 has been phenomenal—for Bangladesh and for the young people. We have a generation that is growing up with smartphones, internet, and everything digital.

For many animal species, diversion is necessary for survival. The killdeer, for example, is famous for putting up quite a show.

Their sufferings remind us of a verse from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Water, water, everywhere. But not a drop to drink.”

Recently, The Daily Star held a roundtable conference on how infrastructure development projects in Bangladesh can be better managed and the summary was published in the daily on December 12 which I read with interest.

I was eagerly waiting for Bob Rae's report on the Rohingya refugees and their repatriation to Myanmar. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Rae, a former premier of Ontario, as Canada's Rohingya envoy on October 23, 2017.

All I could see was a sea of people. Young, old and every age in between, standing in line for hours, to receive food. What shocked me the most was the number of children. There were just so many of them. So many hungry eyes.

Since work began on the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project, a total of about 200 people, including journalists, experts, environmentalists, school children, students and industry experts from Bangladesh have visited Russia.

The United Nations General Assembly on December 21 passed a resolution rejecting the Trump administration's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

My 24-hour journey from Canada to Bangladesh comprises of an eight-hour transit in Dubai, where the anticipation of going back home supersedes any and all expectations of sleep, food, shopping or moving around the city. Hence, I sit and wait for that Emirates flight to take me back home.

My recent op-ed in The Daily Star (December 11 2017) was on the Rohingya repatriation and resettlement issue.

I have been asked this question a couple of times: Is women's clothing linked to their empowerment? I understand how in many cases