An institution can perish through through abdication and silence while the house burns. By every meaningful measure -- the ability to reassure the public, to clarify recruitment, to protect fairness -- the PSC has ceased to function.
Whoever sits in power today must imagine themselves out of power tomorrow. If they cannot accept that thought, then their governance is not democracy but monarchy in disguise.
The roots of this violence lie in the lame-duck interim government’s refusal to do the hard thing first: clean the stables. More than a year into its tenure, we have endured announcements in place of reform and committees in place of consequences.
What happens when the interests of the elite class collide with those of an ever more assertive aspiring elite? We're about to find out.
1971 built a nation from nothing. 2024 has given us a chance to repair it. Independence is absolute; democratic reform is fragile.
History does not present Ziaur Rahman as a schemer, clawing for power. It confronted him with moments when silence or paralysis threatened to suffocate the Bangladeshi people. Each time, he stepped forward because no one else would.
We are already behind, but it is not too late and it need not continue to be that way. AI can help Bangladesh take a quantum leap into the future.
Episode 3 of The J-Z Show confronts Bangladesh’s “history wars,” asking whether the nation can ever move beyond the divides born of 15 August 1975.
We need to revive Bengali Islamic architecture. The eight new mosques recently announced would be the perfect place to start.
On the ground, Gaza is a military and political struggle. In the imagination, it is an eschatological war, stretching from the Crusades to 1948 to today.
If Gaza becomes the example that law is conditional and morality negotiable, then the costs will be felt far beyond its borders. And when history renders its verdict, it will not be kind to those who turned away.
Why this obsession with minimization? Because to reduce the deaths is to reduce the crime. To reduce the refugees is to erase the moral claim of independence. To dismiss the rapes is to absolve collaborators.
The time has come to reimagine student politics and free the nation's campuses from violence and criminality. Is the BNP up to the challenge?
Are there signs that the old elite consensus that governed Bangladesh for five decades is breaking down, and, if so, what will replace it?
The AL may be gone (for now) but that doesn't mean that fascism has been eradicated from the body politic