As Bangladesh celebrates its Golden Jubilee, and marks 50 years of independence, there is much to look back on and even more to look forward to.

Bangladesh’s achievements are exemplary for many developing nations, including Pakistan. The main credit lies with the visionary leader,

Bangladesh has been facing the challenges of disasters due to natural or anthropogenic causes for decades. Prior to independence, this part of land was recognised only as a poor and disaster-prone one.

Without inclusive and equitable quality education, Bangladesh cannot succeed in achieving gender equality and break the cycle of poverty.

Sixty-nine long years ago today, our defiant women and men took to the streets to demand their right to speak in their native tongue and claim their cultural and political rights.

In academia, the status of English is often contested in the Bangladeshi context. Is it a second language or a foreign language? There should not be any such question about our first language, our mother tongue in our everyday life. Bangla is our number one language.

A story that has long been repeated is that Bangla derives from Sanskrit. The truth—the satya, sachcha, shacha, hacha or hasa—is much more complicated.

While writing a text, a literary text in particular, many authors tend not to think about its afterlife. Imagining, experiencing, and putting the story down on paper takes precedence during those moments of creation.

A lot of translations are being done in Bangladesh, from English into Bangla and Bangla into English; much of the latter by native Bangla speakers.

Every Ekushey, we renew our pledge to the language martyrs of 1952 that we will ensure that our beloved Bangla continues to flourish. To redeem this pledge, we need to remember a critical fact: The continued survival of a language depends on how well it adapts to the changing technologies of the age.

Over-the-top (OTT) platforms have significantly transformed the way we consume content today. People primarily find these streaming services attractive because they can be accessed at any time from different devices, offering customers variety and control in what they want to watch.

Poverty is a multifaceted economic phenomenon. Although dealing with the causes of poverty in Bangladesh is complex, the country has nonetheless shown impressive improvements and resilience over the years. Before the coronavirus crisis,

Despite enacting several laws in the past decades to protect women and girls from violence, creating a safer space for women and girls is still a distant reality for Bangladesh.

The Covid-19 crisis necessitates a new roadmap for humanity. No other previous crisis caused as much devastation and reversals in gains in development since the 1990s.

Rivers are priceless gifts of nature to every nation. For “Nodimatrik” Bangladesh they are considered by many as its life-lines equivalent to the veins and arteries of a human body.

Agriculture has consistently been the largest sector in Bangladesh, as in several other developing economies. About 50 percent of the population are employed in this sector and about 70 percent people overall depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

Bangladesh’s health system has four key factors in its structure and functioning.

Bangladesh is often mentioned as a development dilemma for its commendable performance in terms of GDP growth and socio-economic indicators on the one hand, that on the other, contrasts strikingly with pervasive corruption and poor performance in nearly every governance indicator.

After liberation in 1971, Bangladesh faced massive economic and humanitarian challenges right from the get-go. The country was born through struggle, but the struggles were nowhere near over as its economy was quite simply in tatters after the war—and even from before.

Like the previous years we are celebrating our 30th Anniversary with yet another colourful, well-illustrated 184 - page special supplement in five segments.