Irrespective of whether LDC graduation is delayed or not, we must face the music sooner or later. It is time to bite the bullet and focus on productivity. Understanding how firms increase productivity must be at the top of our agenda.
As the BNP is now the ruling party in Bangladesh, there is a growing expectation that it will implement the commitments it made in its platform. While women represent 50.83% of Bangladesh's population, their rights continue to be threatened by violence, limited political participation, and social restrictions.
Though the International Brotherhood of Mediocre Men appears to be doing a competent job of setting the world on literal fire, feminists remain the preferred explanation for why everything is burning.
Feminism has become a new F-word. But let's at least debate the issues that women are really talking about and demanding rather than a patriarchal projection of what men think women want and demanding.
It is often said that there is no personal loss to the architects of war. That statement may be rhetorically exaggerated, yet it captures an essential imbalance. Decision-makers operate at a distance from the battlefield. Their families are rarely in the line of fire.
Bangladesh is a small fish in a big pond. Mr. Rahman must show enough courage to defend the country’s sovereignty while recognizing Bangladesh’s limits and acting rationally as a national statesman: That requires him not to design foreign policy based on whatever the prevalent mood is on social media.
We’re tired of being told to wait. We’re tired of being told to be reasonable. We’re tired of being told to consider the reputations of men, the stability of institutions, the sensitivities of cultures. We’re tired of the same headlines feeling like déjà vu.
Remittance inflows are not merely a function of diaspora goodwill or seasonal rituals; they are the mirror image of confidence in the domestic market’s fairness and functionality.
I write not to add another idea to the pile, but to argue for changing how we decide which ideas deserve the limelight. The answer lies in redesigning the system of decision-making itself -- clarifying who decides, how decisions are made, and how public money is allocated.
Voters opted for political change at a moment of acute economic strain and fraying public security. They desperately want stability and tangible economic recovery. That's what they voted for. That's what they now expect to receive in return.
On the question of 1971 and apology, Jamaat’s tone was arrogant. Had they shown even minimal reconciliation, people might have celebrated August 5’s victory with them on the election day, specially given their alliance with the student movement.
The fact that Jamaat has won so many seats for the first time ever -- most of them along Indian borders -- should be a cause for concern for India. While Bangladeshis may not have embraced Islamic fundamentalism this time, anti-Indian sentiment is clearly gaining ground.
BNP has to govern not merely as the winner of an election but as the steward of a divided nation. Jamaat-e-Islami has to act as a parliamentary opposition, not as a liberation war revision society. The international community has to support democratic consolidation, not strategic alignment.
With the election scheduled to take place in the coming days, the need to heighten and strengthen protective measures is now immediate and critical. Preventive security, early warning, and community engagement efforts must be intensified not only on polling day but throughout the pre-election and post-election period, particularly over the next month, when risks of retaliation and intimidation have historically been highest.
The polls close. One by one, the live streams flicker and die. The official pages go dormant, saving their energy for victory declarations or accusations of theft. The meme pages are quiet. The deepfake bazaar has shut its stalls. Your thumb, trained for twelve hours on a refresh-loop, finally has nothing to pull.
When a society burns its own newspapers, attacks its artists, and restricts freedom of thought, that fire does not stop there. It spreads to courts, classrooms, and homes. When a city burns, its temples do not survive. Our temples, culture and freedom of expression, are no longer matters of personal preference. They are matters of collective survival.
