It was the afternoon of August 21, 2004. An Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue was nearing its end. Then opposition leader Sheikh Hasina had just finished her speech from a makeshift truck stage and was stepping down when a series of explosions shook the area.
Voting to elect Bangladesh's 23rd President is taking place today, Thursday. Polling will be held in the National Parliament chamber from 2pm to 5pm. However, with the ruling BNP holding more than a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the election is largely expected to be a formality. The numbers suggest that Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the BNP's recently retired Secretary General and the party's candidate, is set to become President.
"Autumn has come, a touch of frost lingers in the air" — Rabindranath's autumn is a familiar portrait of Bengali nature. Blue skies with white clouds, swaying kash flowers, dew drops on morning grass and the soft glow of sunlight — autumn is a season awaited by both nature and people.
The Law Reporters Forum (LRF)—an organization of journalists covering law, justice, and parliamentary affairs—has strongly demanded the immediate withdrawal of the decision restricting journalists from entering the courtrooms of various benches of the High Court and Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court. The demand was raised during a human chain and sit-in program organized by the LRF in front of the Supreme Court's main gate on Wednesday.
Rarely has world football witnessed a scene quite like this: FIFA’s president facing an open vote of no confidence from three of his own vice-presidents, with the dispute escalating to discussions about an alternative tournament to the World Cup.
The High Court Division of the Supreme Court has set a record by disposing of over 58,000 old criminal miscellaneous and writ petitions in just 11 working days through a special initiative. The case backlog and the long wait for justice have long been a reality of Bangladesh's judicial system, but this special drive has brought a remarkable change.