A group of teenagers spray-painted a historically black school with racist and anti-Semitic messages recently in Virginia. The judge, as reported by the Huffington Post on February 7, 2017, served the young men an unusual punishment: writing reports on a list of books and movies, besides also visiting a Holocaust museum and doing research on the swastika.

It is hardly a run of the mill event when nine of the most highly populated countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan) get together to discuss the challenges of achieving the goal of Education for All.

The 21st century began 17 years ago with the heady fear of the Y2K virus. If you are a digital native reading this article, there is a good chance you have no idea what I am talking about.

15-year-old Adnan Kabir's death at the hands of teenage gangs has come as a shock to many adults, especially parents who had no inkling of the existence of such gangs.

Does a teenager become a violent member of a gang just by following 'western' culture and using the internet? Do teenagers form

The reason why a critical rethinking on development should be the norm in Bangladesh is a potential decline at the front of culture. Indeed there is a soft and almost subjugated cultural outcry, not audible enough to reach the pundits of development.

Furthermore, blanket blocks on pornographic websites have been tried and consequently discarded in developed and developing countries around the world without much success and noticeable improvements, the internet is way too vast, expansive, and free for such measures to bear any fruits.

A young woman I know was telling me about her son, a student of class three, a few days ago. While fiddling with her son's tab, she found some disturbing sites -- all with adult or pornographic content.

Even though Jatio Muktijuddha Council promises that “all the Birangonas will be recognised in due course of time,'' the fact remains that most of them have already died and those who are still alive may not live to see it, given the state of bureaucracy.

The biggest mass poisoning by toxic medicine in the world in the last one hundred years perhaps occurred in Bangladesh as more than 2,700 children died in a decade since 1982.

The queues in front of the immigration desks were long, practically filling the hall, and people waited impatiently to get through to the equally overcrowded baggage reclaim area. At any other time, this scene would have elicited a frown or had me groaning in dismay but on this occasion the buzz of activity and the sheer number of people provided a huge sense of relief.

It is remarkable that despite constantly being held back by a patriarchal society, women in this country have been able to stride forward and reach remarkable heights.

Even the greatest cynic would agree that the attacks on the minority Hindu population and their properties and places of worship, though intermittent, have been a blight on the democratic and secular credentials of Bangladeshi polity.

Democracy advocates in civil society and government have managed to push back against global corporations, but much of their progress hangs in the balance this month.

Cities have always been important to Asia. As Charles Tilly remarks, “Cities emerged in Asia, and in terms of sheer man-years lived in cities, Asians have more urban experience than the rest of the world put together”.

World Bank President Jim Kim spent the last two days in Bangladesh to assess its growing prosperity and to mark on Monday the international day to end poverty.

As anyone trying to negotiate afternoon traffic in Dhaka can attest only too well, Bangladesh's cities are growing quickly and wildly. If