War in numbers

According to the latest estimates from Norway, 180,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been wounded or killed in the conflict.
24 February 2023, 18:00 PM

How will it end?

The Kremlin wanted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to yield a lightning victory, but 12 months on the war is dragging into a stalemate with neither side achieving military breakthrough nor prepared to agree a settlement based on the status quo.
24 February 2023, 18:00 PM

A village of mosques

Beraid is a small place in terms of size, but it is huge in terms of popularity, thanks to a large number of ancient mosques.
17 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Cultivating reading habits since 2001

At first glance, it looks like a simple tin-shed house. One will not even find any decent-looking furniture inside the room.
17 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Where basic amenities remain elusive

Residents of the newly-added wards in Dhaka North City Corporation expressed dissatisfaction after being denied civic amenities, claiming that life was far better when they were under the union parishad.
17 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Dhaka’s uninspiring govt primary schools

The government aims to build a “Smart Bangladesh” by 2041, but without fixing our faulty public education system, how far can it achieve this goal? The human resources for Bangladesh’s future are being short-changed at the primary education level,  finds The Daily Star through visits to several schools right in the heart of the capital.
10 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Watching planes their only entertainment

With a smiling face and curiosity in her eyes, six-year-old Anika stood beside a barbed wire fence and gazed up at the sky. Soon, an aeroplane took off with a loud roar.
3 February 2023, 18:00 PM

A village of crabs, in Dhaka!

It was early morning. The sun had not yet risen, and most of Dhaka was still sleeping.
3 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Plight of DNCC wards 52, 53: Life seemed better under union parishad

In July 2017, Dhaka North City Corporation took 18 wards under its wing, which were previously under the union parishad system.
3 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Freedom of movement a basic right

Adil Mohammed Khan, professor of urban & regional planning at Jahangirnagar University, said a lack of alternative roads is a direct result of unplanned urbanisation.
27 January 2023, 18:00 PM

There’s only one way in and out

It was the most horrific day of Jhumu Begum’s life when she had to endure labour pain for two hours straight at night, without being able to reach the hospital.
27 January 2023, 18:00 PM

The ordeal of patients with chronic kidney diseases

Four years ago, Md Tobarok Hossain left for Malaysia to work as a labourer on a palm oil plantation. He consciously accepted the brutal life of a plantation worker, only because he wanted to give his family a better life.
20 January 2023, 18:00 PM

On discovering Somali novelist, Nuruddin Farah, at the Dhaka Lit Fest

On each edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest, you leave having discovered a brilliant author. Last time, it was the humorous and adorable Jan Blake whose performance storytelling left me captivated.
13 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Promises remain promises

Catastrophic floods, crop-wilting droughts and record heatwaves this year have shown that climate change warnings are increasingly becoming reality and this is “just the beginning”, experts say, as international efforts to cut planet-heating emissions flounder. 
6 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Can Ukraine survive in 2023?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plunged Europe into its biggest land war since World War Two, igniting a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, pulverised Ukrainian cities and damaged the global economy.
30 December 2022, 18:00 PM

Ukraine war: A brief timeline

February: Russian forces march into Ukraine from the north, in an attempt to gain control of Kyiv and with the intention of overthrowing the Ukrainian government.
30 December 2022, 18:00 PM

Jean Kay: Unforgettable story of a forgotten friend

December 3, 1971. It was around 11:30am in Paris. A flight of Pakistan International Airlines had just landed at Paris Orly Airport.
23 December 2022, 18:00 PM

Rajab Ali's ordeal

Rajab Ali has been away from home for 22 years. He spent 16 years in Saudi Arabia before coming to neighbouring Qatar six years ago, and he hasn't been home for the past six years.
16 December 2022, 18:00 PM

Real lives in ‘artificial’ land

If you happen to come to Qatar from the subcontinent, you could often get confused whether you landed in an Arab land some 3000-4000 kilometres away from home or you were just in another of Bangladesh or India or Pakistan.
16 December 2022, 18:00 PM

Football fever takes over

Sports and politics had long been interlocked in such a way that the intention to view sports from an apolitical lens becomes, like it or not, a political stance.
10 December 2022, 02:30 AM