Special Content
Painful memories of burning of six bodies still haunt relatives
Exactly a year ago on August 5, the sky over Ashulia in Savar was covered with dark clouds of agony and the air was heavy with the smell gunpowder.
Eid-dependent Bangla cinema: A ray of hope or a major setback?
Following the mass uprising in July 2024, the release of new Bangla films had been halted for a long time. In the interim, although Shakib Khan's film Dorod was released, it did not achieve as much commercial success as his recent films typically do. Since then, film releases in Bangladesh have been nearly stagnant. However, over the last two Eids, a total of 12 Bangla films were released—six on each Eid. Among them, films like Borbad, Jongli, Dagi, Tandob, Utsob, and Insaaf received a tremendous response from audiences. Cinema halls became lively again; excitement and enthusiasm were seen everywhere, from ticket counters to inside the halls.
United Kingdom heading towards a racist nightmare
[On 29 July 2024, a horrific racist attack took place in Southport, UK. A mass stabbing targeting young girls occurred at a dance studio in the Meols Cop area of Southport, Merseyside. Two girls died on the spot, six injured children and two adults were taken to hospital in critical condition, and the next day a third girl died. An 18-year-old youth named Axel Rudakubana was convicted of stabbing the three girls to death. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Love, politics and the Galois tragedy
Love makes people immortal, teaches them how to love, and from love comes the inspiration to build the world. Love is sacred, love is beautiful, but it can also turn cruel. Love lays out the net of betrayal and destroys human lives. How many lives are lost each year due to the betrayal of love—who keeps count? The love and betrayal of ordinary people may not have much impact on society. A betrayed lover may end his life in an obscure corner of a city or in a remote village, and the world doesn’t bat an eyelid. But if a life is lost to deceitful love — a life to whom mathematics, science or the world itself is indebted — then the tragic tale of that betrayal-stained love cannot be erased from the earth even after ages or centuries have passed.
‘Ploy’ to realise Tk800cr puts BTRC in trouble
An Internet Service Provider (ISP) is allegedly attempting to extract Tk 8oo crore by ‘strategically’ holding on to spectrum it received for free.
Fragments of Liberation War stories heard from Afsan Chowdhury
To understand the social realities of Bangladesh during and after the Liberation War, one must sit face-to-face with Afsan Chowdhury and listen to him. Though he has conducted research on the Liberation War, he has never looked at it through the lens of a state researcher. He has viewed it through the eyes of a social being. To him, the Liberation War is a people's war, where the fragmented stories of individuals reveal the wartime reality far more than the history documented through state mechanisms.
Battles in Europe using gunpowder from Bengal
When the sun sets in the East, the Western sky is tinged with the light of dawn. Today, the Middle East trembles under Western arms; on either side of the Wagah border, foreign aircraft or drones ignite the lands of India and Pakistan. Yet, in earlier times, the soil of Europe shuddered under the weaponry of India and medieval Bengal.
Mandatory punishment for filing false cases: A landmark provision
The Interim Government's Advisory Council has recently approved the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Act 2025, which includes a groundbreaking provision for mandatory punishment in cases of proven false litigation. The revised law, proposed by the Ministry of Law, states “If a case is proven to be false for any reason, the complainant must be mandatorily punished with up to two years of imprisonment and a maximum fine of one lakh taka.”
Save Milestone School from becoming a zoo
Hearing the words of a student from Milestone School and College, I felt utterly ashamed. Standing in front of a television camera, the student said, “People are coming to visit our school when they feel bored. Bringing their children along with them, they’re eating peanuts, jhalmuri, sugarcane juice, and chotpoti. Our school is now a zoo. If we sold tickets, we’d have become millionaires. As they can’t see anything because of the crowd, they’re asking the gatekeeper to open the gate. They want to go inside and see. What will they see inside? The burnt corpses of children? They’ve come to see the burnt corpses of children.”
How children, adolescents, parents can overcome trauma
The tragic plane crash at Milestone School and College in the capital on August 21 has left us all stunned. Even those of us who witnessed the incident from a distance have endured unbearable pain. The deaths of innocent children have felt like the loss of our own. We lack the words to describe the suffering of those injured children writhing in hospital beds. Everyone is grieving for those who have left us; tears are flowing. Many of us are unable to speak, struck dumb. Some are afraid, unable to sleep, plagued by nightmares.