It took only 3 hours to come to Sherpur starting at 5 AM in the morning from our home in Uttara. Starting early is my favourite practice since I don’t want to face traffic at the busy crossings on the way. Plus the wee hours of hartal gave no traffic at all! Although we...
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Just saw the Dhaka Stock Exchange has gone to the Wibley Wobley again. It reminds me of another stock market, but for that everyone will have to know a bit of history. That’s the US stock market back in the 20s. The whole market used to run on rumors. Average people will invest all...
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Every year I wait for the month of February especially for the book fair. There is no denial to the fact that I see people’s patriotism and affection for their mother tongue in this month. This book fair is one of those annual events which reveal the cultural strengths and aspirations of the Bengali...
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I was officially welcomed in Norway by the Mayor of Drobak city Thore Vestby, who gave me a painting of Drobak and a mug as mementoes of the occasion. The more I spent time with him, the more I realized that Bangladesh desperately needs a people-friendly and honest politician like him to make the...
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When John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, he definitely didn’t have the idea that the “Kingdom of Heaven” in Middle East would be a permanent lost cause. The recent uprising in the Middle East against long serving autocratic regimes indicate two things; you can’t get away with oppression in 21st century technology era, and poverty is as real...
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There is often a naïve reaction in America to political uprisings abroad. The United States is a free place and has a long, albeit imperfect, history of granting asylum to political dissidents. This leads some observers, like George W. Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson, to assume that freedom-seeking political dissidents abroad are looking to...
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Belligerent behavior of the diplomats of first world countries, posted in the third world countries, regularly crosses distinct silver line of diplomatic etiquette, but this is often well received by the tamed and leashed political leadership of the victim countries. These elite Ambassadors mutually determine their esoteric roles and rites to implement their grand...
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For the last seven days my staple reading has become the world famous book by Paulo Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”. I just admire how a philosopher can make a brain storm by doing post mortem of the society. Paulo Freire is simply successful in this regard. Political history says that we, the people...
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The Indian Sub-continent has faced all major religious intruders like Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. And no matter what PR slogan may have been used, all those invasions took place for one purpose alone: to create colonizer-friendly business environment even at the cost of distorting the prevalent socio-political fabric. Thus, Indian culture has been...
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The situation in South Asia today is a clear reflection of the domino effect that has its roots in the British and American Game theories. Religion traders and poverty contractors have taken over the mantel of elites in the cosmopolitan and metropolitan cities of this region like Delhi, Mumbai, Dhaka, Islamabad and Karachi. In...
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I never thought the first blog of this year is going to be about death of a girl, whose birth was a symbol of triumph against the evil we are all fighting since 2001. But as it turns out, the New Year for us just came as a change of date, nothing more than...
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Bangladeshis were shocked by widely published photographs of the dead body of a 15 year old Bangladeshi girl hanging on the India-Bangladesh border Fence. According to news reports the girl named Felani was shot dead by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) at Anantapur while she was illegally crossing the border with her father while traveling back...
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Professor John F Nash said, “The best result will come if everyone in the group does what is best for him and for the group.” This is the best way to achieve the desired goal of a society and at the same time of a country. Bangladesh achieved democracy. But it is really a...
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