Counterpoint

Book reviews generally tend to play on the safer, more polite side of things. This one is anything but. And I confess, I never expected a teen novel about a king’s deposition over 500 years ago to make me have opinions, aside from the novel itself, about my own country. I was wrong, and that is about as big a compliment as I can give it. Read More: [Link in the bio]

There is a segment of the Texas population that its governor of nearly 12 years has been targeting. The Lone Star State has approximately 500,000 Muslims, according to the office of State Representative Suleman Lalani, making them merely 1.5% of its 31.7 million residents. Somehow, soon to be former Governor Greg Abbott’s political calculus has led him to demonize this population. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Every morning, long before the first shafts of pale winter light pierce the dense fog over the industrial corridors of Gazipur, Tongi, or Konabari, millions of weary footsteps echo across the asphalt. Among them is Sumaiya, clutching a worn plastic satchel containing little more than a stainless-steel water bottle, a meagre midday meal, and the silent, grinding burden of familial survival. When the heavy corrugated iron gates of the manufacturing complexes swing open at dawn, they do not merely admit a workforce; they swallow whole lives. Read More: [Link in the comments]

The US midterm elections have delivered a sharp political message: Voters may give a party power, but they do not promise to keep it. When daily life becomes harder, promises go unmet and leaders appear more focused on themselves than on the public, even a strong electoral coalition can begin to fracture. Read More: [Link in comments]

I am a woman, an artist and a mother. When I think about Bangladesh now, I think about what my children will inherit: whether they will be able to question authority, make music, choose their lives and stand beside someone who has been harmed without becoming targets themselves. I wonder how much of their freedom we are quietly surrendering while arguing about who is sufficiently religious, respectable, or patriotic. Read More: [Link in the comments]

As world leaders prepare to gather in Antalya, Türkiye, for the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), Bangladesh has another opportunity to bring an uncomfortable question to the centre of international climate diplomacy. How many more commitments must be made before climate finance actually reaches the communities living with the consequences of climate change? Read More: [Link in the comments]

The only thing we know with certainty about the recent Flydubai Incident is that the airplane suddenly dropped 14,000 feet (equivalent to 5 times the height of the Burj Al Khalifa building) in 30 seconds. This was tracked and recorded by the Flightradar24 website in its earliest reports before anything more was known. Trying to imagine what it might have felt like to be in such a vertiginous dive helps to confirm the scientific analysis that it would have been impossible to pull out of it! Read More: [Link in the comments]

By any measure, the July Uprising was one of the most consequential political moments in Bangladesh’s recent history. Millions of young people who had never participated in a political rally before took to the streets. Through a sense of solidarity forged in the streets, they brought down the Hasina government, which had been in power for 15 years. Read More: [Link in the comments]

The wage crisis is a symptom of a deeper structural problem in our RMG industry: It has too many factories, too little bargaining power, rising costs, and no orderly way for weak firms to leave. Until we fix that structure, no wage settlement will last. This time the pressure is greater than usual. Inflation has eroded real wages, private investment is at an all-time low, youth unemployment is high, city authorities are cracking down on hawkers who often join the protests, and the Awami League is trying to exploit the unrest ahead of Sheikh Hasina's announced December return. But these are triggers. The fuel was laid long before. Read More: [Link in the comments]

We live in an era where political leadership is often measured by the surge of a social media status, the sharpness of an audio or video clip, or the crude exercise of economic and armed domination. We are told that politics is a game of expediency, an arena of compromise where the hardheaded always defeats the righteous. Yet, as we look around a world fractured by polarization, conflict, and a systemic trust deficit, we must ask a fundamental question: Is idealism, optimism or morality a weakness or is it the ultimate form of courage or audacity? Read More: [Link in the comments]

Public attention has recently been drawn to the Japanese-Bangladesh joint development initiative, known as the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B), an ambitious infrastructure and industrial development framework involving investments estimated at approximately US$14 billion. Read More: [Link in the comments]

The mind is remarkably good at constructing alternatives. We revisit the past, reinterpret it and ask what might have happened had one decision gone differently. Psychologists call this counterfactual thinking and it is not inherently a problem after a mistake, it helps us see what we might do differently; after an achievement, it clarifies which choices mattered.

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming central to public life. Most countries have no control over it. For the Global South, the stakes are higher still. In February 2021, Australians logged on to Facebook and found the news gone. The platform was locked in a fight with the government over a law that would make tech companies pay for journalism. In a single night, it cut off news for the entire country. Read More: [Link in the comments]

The photograph is almost cinematic in its perfection. On a rain-slicked Parisian street, a figure in a pink, full-body Pink Panther costume sprints across a crosswalk. Behind him, a massive CRS armored truck unleashes a high-pressure jet of water. In the background, street signs point toward République, Bastille, and Gare de Lyon, names that have echoed through centuries of French uprising. Read More: [Link in the comments]

For the first time since 2007, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has conducted a detailed review of India's human rights situation, and the findings that have emerged from this review are deeply serious and thought-provoking. India had not submitted its report to this Committee for nearly two decades, which makes this review significant in more ways than one. In its report, the Committee has expressed deep concern over incidents of physical and other forms of violence committed by law-enforcement agencies against minority ethnic-religious groups, Dalits, and non-citizens in India over recent years. Read More: [Link in the comments]

When an entrepreneur elects to establish a manufacturing facility in Bangladesh, the considerations extend far beyond the mere costs of land, wages, electricity, or taxes. Such a factory may operate for fifteen or twenty years, or even longer. Consequently, the investor is making a long-term wager not only on the business venture itself but also on the country's stability and reliability. Read More: [Link in the comments]

The noise of mortar shells and heavy artillery no longer comes from the distant battlefields of a foreign war, but is a harsh reality on Bangladesh's southeastern border. Myanmar has been on a downward spiral of violence since the military junta, also known as Tatmadaw, took control in Naypyidaw in the February 2021 coup. But after the start of "Operation 1027" by the Three Brotherhood Alliance in October 2023, the internal war has reached a new and frightening level. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Twelve percent. In a factory office on the edge of Ashulia, that number decides whether 800 sewing machines keep running. Picture the owner in the last week of October, a spreadsheet open on his screen with two columns, while downstairs his workers stitch cotton T-shirts bound for a discount chain in Germany. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Nearly 40 years ago, I left Bangladesh with two suitcases, a carry-on, and $200. On the day I was supposed to leave, my cousin walked in with another $200, a gift from my uncle. That was everything I had when I left for the States. Call it a startup with $400 in seed funding. Somewhere along the way, I picked up an idea from Ian Fleming, of all people. He wrote a short story called "Quantum of Solace." Forget the movie; apart from the title, it has nothing to do with it. Read More: [Link in the comments]

Parties must therefore distinguish between loyalty and indulgence. Genuine loyalty involves correcting a colleague before misconduct becomes a public embarrassment. It requires transparent disciplinary procedures, consistent standards and a willingness to place institutional credibility above personal relationships. Read More: [Link in the comments]