Opinion

August 1975 and Sheikh Hasina’s days in Europe

(Continued from last day’s section)The guest house's three-bedroom apartment was filled with grief and silence. Joy and Putul used to play in the front field. They are now housebound. At the time, Joy, four years old, used to stare at her mother and auntie's distressed faces. Putul, wh...

Opinion

August 1975 and Sheikh Hasina’s days in Europe

(Continued from last day’s section)Sheikh Ha­sina and Sheikh Rehana had to wait a long to find out they were the family's sole living members. Nobody could accurately explain what happened in Dhaka. Phone calls were rolling in from all around the globe, including London. Everyone had d...

Opinion

August 1975 and Sheikh Hasina’s days in Europe

(Continued from last day’s section)Upon entering the room on the third floor, Sheikh Hasina requested with tears to know what Humayun Rashid Chowdhury had said to Wazed Miah. Wazed Miah advised them to cancel their trip to Paris and return to Bonn immediately. After saying this, he went to the...

Opinion

August 1975 and Sheikh Hasina’s days in Europe

Wazed Miah departed Dhaka on March 12, 1975, to pursue a postdoctoral degree at the nuclear research centre in Karlsruhe, West Germany. He arrived in Frankfurt, West Germany, around 7:30 a.m. the following day through Delhi. He then went to his assigned workplace in Karlsruhe. During his stay here, ...

Opinion

Bangladesh-Australia relations evolving

That was about seventeen years ago. I was watching television in the drawing-room with some Australian friends. An Australian friend of mine saw a picture of a few brick buildings in an African city on the screen and asked me, is there such a building in Bangladesh? I was not too surprised by the fr...

Opinion

The present and future of Bangladesh-India relations

Bangladesh and India are close neighbours with a wide range of shared interests. It began at a particularly crucial moment, during Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971. India’s unwavering support and cooperation at the time laid a stable foundation for bilateral ties. At least ten million...

Special Supplement

Bangabandhu’s last Independence Day speech

When I was involved in student politics in the mid-eighties, there was a lot of criticism about Bangabandhu's second revolution, i.e., the Bangladesh Awami Krishok Sramik League(BAKSAL) scheme. What exactly was BAKSAL? Without knowing the particulars, I found a lot of people criticising BAKSAL. ...

Opinion

David Bergman: A soul sold to money

A controversy has erupted amongst Bengali communities globally following a broadcast on Bangladesh from Qatar based Al Jazeera television channel. Sources suggested David Bergman’s involvement behind this TV story. David Bergman is a British citizen and son-in-law of Dr. Kamal Hossain, a promi...

Opinion

Hospital violence: Doctors safety at risk in Bangladesh

In 1996, I went to Panchagarh to campaign for a candidate at the National Assembly election. It was another region for me, andI nearly knew nothing. I was given a red 100cc Honda motorcycle to ride, alongside a person named Khairul. Khairul could be portrayed as’ a slim body with a small build...

Opinion

Idol or sculpture - an unnecessary debate in Bangladesh

A sculpture of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is to be raised at Dholaikhal on the occasion of Mujib Year 2020. Suddenly, some religious leaders made controversial statements on this pre-determined issue, tarnishing the atmosphere. Albeit a little late, Bangabandhu’s followers have likewise...

Opinion

Is vaccine the solution to Covid-19 pandemic in Bangladesh?

The year 2020 is coming to an end. Nearly the entire year was gone through with COVID-19. After emerging from the Wuhan city of China in December 2019, Coronavirus rapidly spread to more than 200 nations around the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic....