While it would be presumptuous to predict a Jamaat victory in the upcoming elections on February 12, the BNP and other secular and liberal democratic parties must acknowledge the emergence of a Third Party with a moderate Islamic agenda that could gain power in the next round of elections in 2031.
Society needs a new compact to rein in the empire of corporate giants. This is as true for Bangladesh as it is for the rest of the world. Else we will all descend into the servitude of a new feudal system headed by giant corporations and the handful of their beneficiaries.
Bangladesh needs leaders willing to say what I believe must be said: Crimes against humanity warrant organizational accountability, but only through a judicial process that respects rule of law. That is the stance Tarique must take.
The Korail high-rise promise is not just a construction project. It is a governance challenge shaped by misaligned incentives, fragmented land control, extreme density, contested beneficiary selection, weak tenure enforcement, and post move-in affordability.
Arithmetic still points to a BNP-led alliance winning, with a Jamaat-led alliance more likely to land as the principal opposition. The caveat is that Bangladesh has not had credible elections since 2008, so any confident prediction about voting behaviour is just that: An informed forecast, not a guarantee.
Turning water into a nationalist symbol may mobilize sentiment, but it has never produced water -- and it has often delayed the reordering of ties that scarcity now makes unavoidable.
Whether it is a party that markets itself as the sole heir of 1971, or a hardline movement that once mocked that struggle and now sanitizes its record, the exploitation is the same. Both seek to convert freedom into political capital. Both demand that citizens forget what they saw and felt. Both ask us to trade memory for myth.
Is tinkering with the formal rules of the game the triumph of hope over experience (this time politics will be different)? Or a more technocratic faith in the power of institutional architecture to push back against the potent political imperatives of rents and control (we can design our way to democracy)? Either way, fixing the rules seems a misplaced focus when history has shown that the amassing of political power rapidly renders such niceties ornamental.
India has not merely provoked a cyclical wave of anti-India sentiment; it has actively contributed to giving it a permanent, structural form. The alienation is no longer just about borders -- it is about sovereignty.
I’m not against using AI, I never was. I just want you to use it cautiously. Because the more you are replacing AI with your own mind, the more it will take space in your soul. If we keep asking AI solutions for every simple problem, our mind will become too fragile to face challenges.
The question for a republic is whether it can learn to look away from the dazzling, authoritarian image long enough to see -- and rebuild -- the dull, demanding, and essential foundations of a reality-based politics.
Rumour is part of politics and society but now it can be magnified and curated at speed in the age of the (un)smart phone. Compared to the digital control of the previous regime what we have now is the information bomb.
Given how rapidly an emerging narrative hardens in current discourse, we must start our critical evaluations of Hadi’s legacy as soon as possible: Hadi’s image must be snatched away from those who want to worship him.
The decision for Bangladesh is simply this: Either we recognize what is happening to our degree of liberty now, or we will soon read about it in the pages of history books as if it is a novel about something that was simply unavoidable.
Bangladesh’s current urban planning, development, and management systems are so fragmented, multi- layered, and institutionally weak that administrative restructuring alone will not be sufficient at the moment.
