By binding the concept of reform so tightly to the consensus commission's existence, and suggesting that the commission's end would spell the end of reform itself, we have propagated a dangerous fiction: that meaningful reform requires suspending normal democratic politics and governing through unelected technocrats.
The RT interview came in the midst of a concerted public relations blitz by Hasina and her supporters, which included a number of interviews from the deposed Prime Minister to friendly Indian media outlets.
The Bhola cyclone and its aftermath opened up space for a critique of the West Pakistan government and brought into stark relief the issues of disparity and negligence that would lead to war and independence the following year.
The real challenge is separation: Can parties driven by faith transform national strength without narrowing citizenship to lines of belief?
The NYC mayor-elect did what Bangladeshi politics refuses to do: Connect democratic renewal to economic dignity. He showed that when people believe their material lives will improve, they don’t hesitate to show up.
The July Charter is quite clear: The proposed Upper Chamber will not have the power to block legislation, and the question of leading to a hung parliament does not even arise.
The real victory of any revolution lies not in the fall of an old regime but in the birth of a culture that resists repeating its mistakes. Bangladesh’s revolution will have meaning only if it leads to a politics that listens, includes, and endures.
The time is long over due to drop the fixation on inefficient net zero targets and double down on adaptation to drive green energy breakthroughs
November 1975 was one of those months when, to paraphrase Lenin, decades happen. Fifty years on from that month of coup and counter-coup, we can hope that the guns have been forever silenced in Bangladesh, and that we will never again see rule from the cantonment.
We stand today at a critical juncture. The authoritarian state has collapsed, but the authoritarian mind endures. The struggle for democracy, therefore, is no longer against a regime -- it is against ourselves.
If you attend these festivals, you owe it to yourself and to Dhaka to also step outside the gates. Don't be someone who celebrates local and artisanal only when it's packaged with a price tag and a velvet rope. Don't be someone who feels cultured because you paid for the privilege.
Bangladesh’s politics stands today at a critical crossroads. If a new political force grounded in liberal values does not emerge, the state will inevitably drift further into extremism, fanaticism, and division.
Until democracy regains its moral soul -- until citizens can question without fear and leaders can lose power without vengeance -- it will remain a performance, not a principle. And if this performance continues, one morning we will awaken to discover that democracy has quietly turned into its opposite.
As we chart our future as an innovating nation, we must ask ourselves: Will we continue to be a nation that tolerates and even encourages heresy, heterodoxy and esoterism, or will we ignore the lessons of history and become a closed society, one that is hostile to new ideas?
Call the vote. Step down from the balcony. And let an elected government answer, at last, to the only sovereign that matters. The antidote to our present malaise is not another announcement. It is an election.
While no model for increasing women's political representation is perfect, the crux of the matter is that the political desire for a workable solution is what is absent. This is what must change if women are to experience the fruits of Bangladesh 2.0.
