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.
Foreign observers will not, and cannot, answer the big questions. At best, they can marginally increase the reputational cost of blatant fraud. At worst, they offer political elites an easy scapegoat, deflecting public anger away from those who truly failed.
The lesson of recent first-past-the-post elections, from Britain to South Asia, is that victory belongs to the party that combines breadth with discipline. BNP has achieved the former. The task now is to execute the latter: Defend marginal constituencies, prioritize candidate quality, and treat every seat as winnable.
The NCP is still young. Its leaders are young. When it was launched, the response was electric; crowds gathered wherever it went. That energy is now waning. The atrophy has begun -- but it is not irreversible.
Nothing in recent geopolitical trends suggests pressures on Bangladesh’s economy are going to get simpler. Everything points to a need to accept that simply returning to the status quo will be insufficient. The economy must exceed both performance and expectations of the past if the nation is ever to hope to catch up with its competitors.
After liberation in 1971, the decisions made in those first years shaped the country for decades. The people who rise to state power or prominence in the next few years will define Bangladesh's trajectory for a generation.
The Bengali nation is one of the largest in the world, a people of immense resilience and rich culture. Our greatness is not diminished by lifting up our smallest communities; it is defined by it. To stand with the Kol people today is to affirm the sentiment captured on a wall during the recent peoples uprising: "This country doesnt belong to any one group. It belongs to all of us".
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.
The time has come for us to once again turn our attention and divert our resources to a truly global world sport: football.
Rejecting religion-based politics does not mean denying religion; rather, it means taking a stand for equality, human rights, and justice. Without women's liberation, no society, no state, and no politics can be truly just.
Our future cannot be entrusted to outrage merchants on YouTube. It must rest with leaders and citizens who understand that justice is built through patience, responsibility, and steady labor, not performed for clicks and applause.
Ashfaq Chowdhury Piplu’s death is a question thrown at our feet by the city we are building. The falling rod asks: What do you value more? The abstract future value of a building, or the concrete, present life of a person walking?
Jamaat has emerged as one of the two main parties in the current dispensation. Its student wing has won student council elections in five universities. Its online activists dominate the cyberspace. It has consistently polled sufficiently well to emerge as the main opposition in the next parliament if not outright win the election.
In the hands of Jamaat-e-Islami, a five-hour workday is not welfare. It is soft patriarchy, cloaked in empathy. Bangladesh should not repeat the mistakes of others when better models are already visible.
In Episode 7 of Counterpoint Generations, Zafar Sobhan and Professor Rehman Sobhan discuss Manchester United’s recent win, revisit how their shared love for football began, and reflect on the current state of global and Bangladeshi football.
The notion that Jamaat-e-Islami is on the cusp of ruling Bangladesh tells us less about Bangladesh’s politics and more about the fantasies and anxieties of those observing it from insulated rooms.
