“Illegal or legal, I am the Prime Minister.” ~Sheikh Hasina, September 25, 2021, New York. Strange but true. “Illegal” and “Mother of Mafia,” the two terms seem to have established themselves in the political parlance of contemporary Bangladesh. One needs not be an Archimedes to understand who the terms refer to. They are openly talked […]
January 30 this year will mark the 74th anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It was in the evening of that day in 1948 that Gandhi – better known as the Mahatma – was felled by the bullets of an assassin, as the unrivalled global icon of non-violence walked towards a prayer meeting. […]
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not up for re-election for at least another two years as the country’s next parliamentary elections are due in 2024. Yet, his popularity and that of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are in for a tough test with a clutch of crucial regional elections slated over February and […]
It snowed late last night in Washington: perhaps a fitting end, in some metaphoric sense, to the day that marked one year since the January 6, 2020 attack on the US Capitol by the Trumpian mob trying violently – if ineptly – to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden. That attack desecrated the Capitol […]
The Bangladesh government is fascist in nature and has tactfully removed democracy from the country. There have not been one or two instances, but hundreds or thousands of incidents have derail democracy. Opposition leaders are jailed with a series of cases only to protect PM Sheikh Hasina’s grip on power. Foreigners, journalists, the opposition and […]
Growing up, I would hear my relatives saying aloud how there would come a day when we would get kicked out of ‘their country’. We just didn’t know when it would happen. That phrase is likely familiar to many people of color, particularly so to Muslims. This idea emerges from the notion that our sense […]
Every nation faced with an insurmountable crisis tries to finds a salvager, whom the people trust will be able to salvage the country from the ditches of uncertainty and the reign of anarchy. Bangladesh now faces this situation situation. Every Bangladeshi now feels their future is gloomy. Their country is under that paw of an obstinate […]
The impasse between Iran and the US over returning to the Vienna nuclear talks seems to drag on even though both sides are keen on negotiating. Washington and Tehran may have equally valid concerns but too much time has been wasted due to lack of trust and the inability of the negotiators to find new […]
Subramanian Swamy, a veteran lawmaker belonging to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India, once again demanded his country to invade Bangladesh and occupy it. He made the demand first in 2011 and kept hammering it in the floor of the parliament, as well as outside it. Technically, India controls every aspect of Bangladesh […]
Libya has endured years of turmoil, political fragmentation and dashed hopes for peace, ten years after former leader Muammar Gaddafi was tracked down and killed by Libyan rebels in his hometown Sirte on October 20, 2011. Although one of the revolution’s key objectives was to rid Libya of autocracy, the country still faces the threat […]