Category: Op-ed

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly is taking place at a time when the international system appears more divided than it has been in decades. The official theme of this year’s General Assembly is “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All”. Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dr. Khalilur Rahman is …

Read more “The United Nations at a Crossroads: Can the World Restore Trust and Peace?”

By Sabiha Zakir Bangladesh was supposed to close the measles chapter. Instead Bangladesh turned into a national crisis over measles. Since mid-March 2026, the country has been fighting an outbreak that has reached almost every district, filled paediatric wards past capacity, and killed more children in a single year than the disease has claimed in …

Read more “How Did a Vaccine-Preventable Disease Become a National Crisis?”

“I was a science student and got GPA 5 in my SSC exam. But before SSC, my family forced me to marry at 15. After that my husband did not want me to study. Still I managed to get into college, first in science, but since he did not let me attend, I had to …

Read more “Child Marriage in Bangladesh: Persistent Harm, Weak Enforcement and the Need for Reform”

বাংলা নাট্যসাহিত্যের ইতিহাসে সেলিম আল দীন (১৯৪৯-২০০৮) এক অনন্য নাম। তাকে রবীন্দ্রনাথ-পরবর্তী কালের বাংলা ভাষার অন্যতম শ্রেষ্ঠ নাট্যকার হিসেবে বিবেচনা করা যেতে পারে। এর কারণ শুধু তার নাটকের সংখ্যাগত প্রাচুর্য নয়, বরং তিনি বাংলা নাটকের ভাষা, আঙ্গিক ও দর্শনকে নতুন করে নির্মাণ করেছিলেন। তার সৃষ্টিশীলতা বাংলা নাটক কে এক অনন্য রূপ দিয়েছেন রবীন্দ্র পরবর্তী সময়ে। …

Read more “সেলিম আল দীন: বাংলা নাটকের স্বরূপসন্ধানী”

Abu Abdor Mohammad Zahirullah was born on 19 August 1935, in British India, in Majupur village of the present-day Sonagazi Upazila of Feni district. He was the third among eight siblings. His father, Mohammad Habibullah, was a teacher at the Calcutta Alia Madrasa, while his mother, Syeda Sufia Khatun, was a homemaker. The transformation from …

Read more “Zahir Raihan: An Unparalleled Figure in Literature, Cinema and Political Aesthetics”

When one unit of the Adani power plant in Jharkhand went offline this week, Bangladesh did not merely lose several hundred megawatts of electricity. Dhaka was reminded, once again, of a much larger problem; how much of the country’s energy security has come to depend on decisions, fuel supplies and infrastructure beyond its own borders. …

Read more “The Adani Question Is Really a Question of Bangladesh’s Energy Sovereignty”

A photographer spends days getting the right shot. A designer may spend weeks developing a visual identity for a small business. A software developer can spend months building something that works. Once the work is finished, however, copying it can take seconds. That imbalance is at the heart of Bangladesh’s intellectual property problem. The country …

Read more “Bangladesh Is Creating More. Can Its Laws Protect What It Creates?”

Photo: Daily Sun For the past couple of decades, Bangladesh has slowly been becoming an increasingly difficult place to live for many of its citizens. Men, women, and children have all fallen victim to different forms of crime and suffering. However, women continue to occupy a major part of this list. From being harassed on …

Read more “Pink for Protection, But What About Freedom?”

On 14 August, 2026, nine workers lost their lives inside an LNG carrier at a Sitakunda shipbreaking yard after being exposed to toxic gas. One survivor, Mohammad Selim, told The Daily Star that if he had stayed inside for just 20 seconds longer, he wouldn’t have made it out. Some workers had masks on; others …

Read more “The Law Exists. So Where Does Responsibility Go? “