A front page report in this newspaper on Friday has very clearly brought out the trauma that the country has suffered in the last two months as a consequence of the political programmes called by the BNP. Our fears are compounded by BNP's threat of even tougher programmes should the government not accede to their demands by 8 March.

MARCH of 1971 was a month that will go down in history because, beginning on March 1, the course of history of one Pakistan changed very fast.

THE horrific murder of Avijit Roy, an activist writer, in full public view, has shocked all but the bigoted fringe elements of our society.

IT is disquieting to see that police has proposed change to some important safeguard provisions of Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention) Act, 2013. A prominent Bengali daily, Prothom Alo, has reported that the police authority has sent a proposal to Home Ministry to bring alterations in the definition, investigation process and punishment provisions stipulated in the Act.

US president Abraham Lincoln once elaborated on the dangers facing the Americans. He said some trans-Atlantic military wasn't going to crush them with a blow. Nor all the armies of Europe and Asia “could by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years.” He then said if destruction was the lot of the Americans, it must be them who will be its author and finisher. As a nation, he concluded, the Americans will either live as free men forever or die by suicide.

Democracy has never functioned very well in Bangladesh.

THE US government has taken two exemplary steps in the wake of the brutal killing of Avijit Roy of Mokto Mona fame when he was returning with his spouse from Ekushey Boi Mela on Thursday last. First, it has flown out of a Dhaka hospital his critically injured wife Bonya Ahmad, taking her under the wings of a US hospital. Secondly, the US authorities are sending an FBI team to investigate Avijit's murder.

WHEN December and March come, I get calls from newspapers asking me to write about our Liberation War.

As West Pakistanis, we are shocked and shamed by the recent developments in our country. We decry the denial by West Pakistani leaders of East Pakistan's right to self-determination. We condemn the current policy of brutally suppressing the home-rule movement in Bengal.

THE Government of Bangladesh, the Ministry of Home in particular, has come up with a set of directives concerning the indigenous people of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) that are contradictory to the 1997 Peace Accord and detrimental to the core values and spirit of the country's Liberation War and independence.

THE brutal killing of Avijit brings into sharp relief the question posited in the heading of this article. He is the latest in a long list of victims who had to forfeit his life to an extremist group who found his views to be in discord with theirs. And the killers claim to belong to a faith that considers killing of even one innocent person as killing of entire humanity.

POWER makes strange bedfellows. Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir government, has joined hands with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Yet his victory in the state assembly elections primarily has been on the plank that he will not allow the BJP to enter the valley. That he has gone back on the electoral promise is not any different from what leaders of other political parties do.

Chroniclers will record December 17, 1971[ December 16, 1971], as the day of the dismemberment of Pakistan. Historians will say that the destruction of the country, as conceived and constituted by its founding fathers, began on the night of March 25. From that moment, the movement toward disaster was inexorable, for the men who held our destiny were oblivious to reason of politics, diplomacy, morality, and military strategy.

Here is Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's interview with Ramesh Chandra, Secretary-General, World Peace Council, published on August 30, 1971.

WE are objective and neutral in our assessment when it comes to sourcing”, announced a brand's moderator in a conference held for the benefit of twenty global manufacturers in Hong Kong forty-eight hours ago. Sitting right by the Harbour with a splendid view of the waves crashing against the rocks, the meeting soothed most of us while we listened to the stories from the other readymade garment suppliers from the other parts of the world, namely Pakistan, India, China and Myanmar.

THE significance of political factors on economic performance is well established in the theoretical and empirical literature. Channels of political impact on the economy are many. Political instability takes a toll on economic growth through lower investment and subdued economic activities.

IN the early 1960s, John F Kennedy said, "Anyone who can solve the problems of water, will be worthy of two Nobel prizes: one for peace and one for sciences" (cited in Likhotal 2013: 86). This statement of Kennedy implies the significance as well as challenges of resolving water problems. In South Asia, water has been constructed as a scarce resource and hence, is considered a source of conflict rather than cooperation.

WHILE the proxy war rages between Russia and “little Russia,” the bigger question for Ukraine is to avoid economic collapse. Without a stable economy, it cannot defend itself against external circumstances.

I would wish these pages were not only an anthology of eye-witness accounts. People of my generation have experienced enough horror to be, alas! no longer shocked. And human nature is such that it is rare that horror does not breed horror.

EVEN with all our differences, the nation is united in mourning the merciless killing of 42 year-old free thinker, prominent writer, engineer, humanist and blogger, Avijit Roy. Avijit, author of at least seven books, wrote extensively on promoting secular freedom and spoke openly about his religious beliefs.