Don't we love tragic heroes? Almost three years ago the packed audience at the home of Bangladesh's cricket in Mirpur and millions across the country cried with the Tigers after their two-run defeat against Pakistan in the Asia Cup final.

Two youths who were accused for murder of a politician are killed in separate “gunfights” with Rab and police in Jessore and Comilla districts today. They are Shamim Ashraf and MH Sunny.

Have you seen the barn owl in the moonlight, inaudibly searching for a field mouse to feed its young or the flying squirrel leaping from one tree to another filtering the light and the shadow of the moon? Have you seen an egret flying into the moon, or just one dwarf tree standing alone in the plains under the full moon, creating a black and white negative of its daytime image?

Writer, historian and war crimes researcher Shahriar Kabir talks about...

Shahzaman Mozumder Bir Protik goes back to the heroic days of our 1971 Liberation War and tells the story of the battle of Ashuganj and the Muktibahini's march towards Dhaka.

Few of them returned home. Many of their bodies could not even be traced. Most of the corpses that were found at different killing sites in Dhaka were mutilated beyond recognition. They were among the brightest sons and daughters of the soil -- all pro-liberation people including professors, journalists, litterateurs and doctors.

Bangladesh has seen enough damage to its resources even prior and post 1971 and now 42 years after liberation, perhaps it is time to stop the selfish agendas, cutting and destroying and initiate the restoration what was once already there, for at least the chance of a greener tomorrow.

Fear was what possessed the sailors over the 100 days in captivity. They had been briefed on a situation like ship hijacking. But nothing worked as the pirates boarded their ship and asked them to surrender. Three of the sailors even fainted. “Are they going to shoot me now? Would they let me talk with my daughter, would they?” M Idris, a deck fitter, was uttering to himself, lying on the floor of the ship's Bridge along with several others following the pirates' instruction.

Former chief of the Indian army's eastern command Lt Gen (retd) JFR Jacob yesterday said it was the freedom fighters’ gallantry that liberated Bangladesh from Pakistan occupation.