He can keep the portfolio as a badge of party confidence. Or he can turn it into something rarer in our politics: A record. And if he wants that record to mean anything, he should begin by demanding answers from Facebook and YouTube.
It is striking that nearly two years after a youth led uprising that was triggered by protests about jobs, the economy is largely absent from public discourse. This may be the ultimate July betrayal of them all.
At a time when investor confidence is closely tied to perceptions of policy stability and transparency, a structured and inclusive engagement framework sends a powerful signal. It tells both domestic and international investors that policymaking is consultative, predictable, and responsive.
Money is not free. Interest-free loans do not eliminate cost; they merely obscure it. Whether financed through budgetary allocations or institutional balance sheets, the subsidy embedded in such loans must ultimately be borne by someone.
The ordinances concerning the Human Rights Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, and the prevention of enforced disappearances, are all directly aimed at protecting citizens’ rights, and maintaining the separation of powers. Rendering them ineffective is deeply disappointing from the perspective of citizens.
Strengthening healthcare services means investing in frontline workers, improving facility readiness, ensuring reliable supplies of essential medicines, and better integrating services across the continuum of care.
Bangladesh is not short of clever people or workable ideas. What we are short of is institutional willingness to treat a crisis as something other than an inconvenience to be weathered.
Albert Camus wrote that we must imagine Sisyphus happy but for those caught in Bangladesh’s cycles of performative governance, happiness is not the point. Each new deadline, each “operation,” each raid is a boulder pushed up the hill. The problem rolls back down, and we begin again.
Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done; impartially, consistently, and without fear or favor. For ordinary citizens to trust the system, they must believe that the law protects them equally, regardless of wealth, influence, or affiliation.
The logical way forward is for the government to ensure that all large producers of perishable agricultural commodities set up daily auctions. Then government agencies can ensure fair prices by auditing the records of the auctions.
In the end, the controversy is not about a mechanism. It is about a mindset. It reveals a society that remains deeply anxious about opportunity and deeply divided in access to it.
If the UN cannot prevent wars, cannot restrain powerful states, or even name the aggressors, then the world must confront an uncomfortable question: Is the United Nations still fulfilling its founding mission?
South Africa’s experience shows that legitimacy depends on perceived impartiality and transparency from day one. For a country at the crossroads, that is an invitation worth considering.
Frustration, when it has nowhere constructive to go, seeks a target. Too often, women become that target -- online through harassment and abuse, offline through control, intimidation, or violence.
Beyond food, water and shelter, refugees make it clear that safety, dignity, and purpose are also essential to a meaningful life. But cuts under the prioritization exercise jeopardize this holistic commitment to Rohingya well-being.
We need more than purple sarees; we need greater representation of women in Parliament to steer the budget toward safety and a localized commitment to the UN Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security agenda.
