Policy

What the Law Actually Says About Polygamy

There was never a provision in the law that the permission of the first wife is needed for a second marriage; therefore, the court did not say anything new.

Why Bangladesh needs rule-based trade monitoring

A country aspiring to become a trillion dollar economy cannot afford to operate with manual, subjective, or personality-driven oversight. It needs strong institutions delivering predictable outcomes.

Somaliland’s Israel Gambit Is a Strategic Own Goal. Bangladesh Learned This Lesson in 1971

Bangladesh rejected Israel’s recognition not because it could afford to be principled -- but because it could not afford not to be strategic. Somaliland should take note. The lesson is clear: recognition divorced from coalition-building and regional consensus can be worse than no recognition at all.

How Bangladesh Slipped into the Global High-Risk Category

What is ultimately at stake is not merely the ease of obtaining visas. It is how Bangladeshi citizens are perceived as participants in the global order.

The UN Charter Is Not an Arrest Warrant

Normalizing forced extractions in the name of justice does not advance accountability; it advertises that power can dispense with law

Ten Tasks for Future Bangladesh

Bangladesh has turned a page in its political history and a new phase of political governments is about to start. This may therefore be a good time to think about the future socio-economic tasks.

The State Had a Full Year. The Students Never Do.

Governments have changed. Elections have come and gone. Political narratives have shifted -- sometimes dramatically. Yet NCTB has remained reliably unable to perform its most basic function.

Is Jamaat Using NCP as a Secular Shield?

If NCP grows too strong, it risks becoming a genuine rival. My sense is that Jamaat has neither the intention to reform itself nor the willingness to allow such growth. Jamaat will remain the benchmark of right-wing politics in Bangladesh, while exploiting the NCP whenever a secular shield becomes necessary. The greatest casualty of this alliance will be July itself.

How Bangladesh Can Rebuild Its Skills to Build the World

What is being proposed is a National Education & Skills Master Plan -- not a document, but an operating system. Its core rule is brutally simple: no training exists unless it maps to a destination country, a verified certification standard, and a real wage ladder.

The Rage Was Economic, Not Political

The critics are right: the system is unjust. But addressing anger without repairing the economic wiring that produces it has only ever muted the noise. We are not risking a tinderbox. We are responsible for the one we are already living in.

When Bangladesh’s Demographic Dividend Turns Into a Curse

This demographic dividend becomes a curse when policy fails to match demography. The interim government’s focus on political stabilization overshadows economic planning, leaving youth unemployed and restless.

Bangladesh Cannot Afford to Underinvest in Cultural Diplomacy Any Longer

What Bangladesh lacks is not culture, talent, or stories -- but the vision and infrastructure to translate them into sustained soft power

The Democratization of Human Rights Violations

The authoritarian habits cultivated over a decade and a half did not disappear with the fall of a government; they seeped into the public bloodstream. When state violence takes a step back, social violence often steps forward.

Rivers as Sovereignty: Bangladesh Must Reclaim Its Water Future

We cannot build the Bangladesh we envision -- democratic, just, climate-resilient -- while accepting manufactured water scarcity as inevitable. The rivers that created Bengal sustain us still -- but only if we fight to reclaim them.

Time to Focus on Internal Security

Bangladesh needs to develop a national security strategy that forms the basis for decisions on the investments that will be needed to properly train and equip civilian law enforcement agencies, who need to be depoliticized and professionalized, as well as the country’s armed forces.    

Peace Is Still an Illusion For Palestine

Without accountability, restraint, and a genuine recommitment to Palestinian sovereignty, the truce will remain a mirage -- and peace a far cry