Rouhani and his allies are unable to offer ordinary Iranians economic hope – a failure that causes them to lose both the legislative and presidential elections.

When people, even the poorest of the poor, experience that they have a legal right to ask for and get information, or at least a response, from powerful civil servants whose shadows they would not dare to cross in the past, it generates a sense of empowerment and a feeling that they are much less unequal and oppressed than they thought.

The election symbol of the Awami League is a boat; interestingly, AL now resembles a boat as big as Noah's Ark as it accommodates anybody from any party, irrespective of political colour and ideology.

Today's column is all about uncertainties. By the time you read this piece, things around the world will have changed.

In another fifteen months, the world's eyes will be riveted on the United States to see who the next US President will be.

In last month's column, we said that a key reason for the tardy progress of the Right to Information Act (RTI) in the country is general disbelief that the age-old practice of official secrecy in the work of public authorities will change just because there is a new law that seeks to end it.

As storming of Bastille had heralded the fall of Luis XVI, the fall of Dhaka Cantonment on February 22 and release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had literally paved the way for the end of Pakistan in the soil of Bengal.

This country has on and off been plagued by wrong decisions of several ministers, bureaucrats and public servants, shamed by unruly behaviour of...

Those elected should get one consolidated sum which should include all expenditures, including accommodation, transport, electricity, water, telephone, etc. This will enable the people to know how much an elected member costs the exchequer.

The chief justice of Bangladesh has recently assured us that the judiciary, like any other public institution, could be fairly criticised.

In a historical referendum on July 5, 2015, the Greek voters overwhelmingly sided with the current government in its debt negotiations with its European partners.

Lately, three exceptional pieces of news must have grabbed your attention, even sprung pleasant surprises at you, not without a 'toxic' bit lacing them.

Media reports reveal the shocking existence of a syndicate of members of the police force that are allegedly involved in smuggling Yaba drugs.

Thank Heavens for the recent smuggling bust at Dhaka Airport. Things were getting rather boring.

Cabotage restriction means that Bangladeshi trucks may move to Bhutan, India and Nepal with Bangladeshi goods but cannot pick up Indian, Bhutanese or Nepalese goods on its way back to Bangladesh. That means Bangladeshi trucks have to return empty.

Finance Minister Abdul Muhith desperately wants to break out of the six percent growth trap and he seems to believe that this can be done with a larger budget.

Bangladesh along with some of its South and Southeast Asian neighbours presently stands at a crossroads.

During my insensitive, immature childhood years I used to be hugely amused when a few of my South Asian friends from the South of India would shake their heads from left to right, saying Yes.

As with any case of austerity politics, the biggest losers were the working class, as conditions of free market investment benefitted the capital-owning class. These harsh measures eventually led to mass unemployment and underconsumption and as a result the economy suffered even more, worsening Greece's plight.

AL'S affable finance minister is a lucky man having done the national budget more number of times than any other finance minister.