This history matters for one simple reason -- the corridor China proposed in Beijing in June to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister is the same idea, with the same starting point in Kunming, with the same logic, but without India.
Sylhet’s Tea Garden Adivasis and the Unbroken Architecture of Colonial Indenture
Bangladesh’s workers abroad now send home three and a half times what all the world’s donors disburse with no conditions, no consultants, and no debt to repay. It is time to say plainly which model is working.
The republic that declared itself in 1776 was, at bottom, an argument that human beings could be trusted, through reflection and iteration, to correct themselves. Two and a half centuries on, having stumbled badly and then caught itself, it has just offered fresh evidence for that argument. The experiment is older now, but it is still running.
What started as a protest became politics. What was once dismissed as extreme is now the subject of international summits. The questions Green activists were asking 50 years ago -- how do we live within the limits of this planet, and who pays when we do not -- are still the most important questions today.
The ceasefire has created an opportunity. Whether the parties seize it will depend not only on the negotiators in the room but also on political leaders willing to accept outcomes short of their maximalist positions. Transforming that opportunity into lasting peace remains the region's greatest challenge.
A country becomes innovative not when its officials announce innovation, but when its inventors no longer need to beg them for the right to build.
Postponing LDC graduation won't help us unless we use the time to fundamentally turn things around.
Why the $6 billion expressway must be financed by the people who will drive it -- and what the Global South can teach the West about infrastructure.
The most obvious solution is the legal system must criminalize online shaming and punish the cyber-harassers instead of forcing women to disable their accounts.
Women are neither vessels of national honour nor laboratories of cultural experimentation. They are citizens. And the value of a citizen lies not in her clothing, but in her ideas, her voice, her political convictions, and her contributions.
The US-–Iran memorandum ended a war on American terms. But the fine print on the Strait of Hormuz, like the rise of the mediators who brokered it, tells a more complicated story.
Bangladesh now has the diagnostic tools, the legal framework, and crucially, the public honesty about the scale of the task that previous governments lacked. What it does with that foundation over the next two to three years, not the next two to three months, is the real story still being written.
The government and private sector have an opportunity to work together to translate the positive policy signals contained in the budget into tangible investment outcomes. If we do so successfully, Bangladesh will not only attract foreign capital but also encourage successful members of the Bangladeshi diaspora to invest their expertise, resources, and networks in the country's future.
The simple rule is this: If something can be misunderstood, it probably will be. And if it can be said in a simpler way, it should be. Because people do not expect perfect speeches. They just want clear ones.