BARRISTER TUREEN AFROZ | It has been a long journey to accomplish an impossible mission! However, the Awami League–led government remained committed to hold the war crime trials against the local and international pressure and unwarranted conspiracy. Almost nearing nine years into the operations of the war crimes tribunals, the trials of war criminals about…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | The recently leaked seven–minute telephone conversation between senior BNP leader Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain and an agent of Pakistan’s Inter–Services Intelligence (ISI) has brought to light the Pakistani spy agency’s active effort to influence the Dec 30 parliament election. Bangladesh intelligence sources said their investigations have found that the ISI has been maintaining regular…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | The ruling Awami League is expected to return to power with majority of parliamentary seats in the upcoming election partly owing to its well–entrenched system of patronage at local level and also because it has overseen a period of solid economic growth, according to London–based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The EIU, however,…
Read moreSUBIR BHAUMIK | A long exercise over determining citizenship in India’s northeastern state of Assam may end up rendering around three million people stateless. Four million people, mostly Bengali Hindus and Muslims, were not included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft that was published in July this year. Those excluded were asked to…
Read moreDHAKA | PRIME Minister Sheikh Hasina said that Bangladesh’s rapid economic expansion will pick up further momentum to hit 10% annual growth over the next three years. Ahead of a general election on Dec. 30, the 71–year–old leader said her nation will shed its “least developed country” status from 2024. Hasina has overseen nearly a…
Read moreISHRAT HOSSAIN | INDIA should not be worried about Bangladesh’s close ties with China; the cooperation is meant only for development’, reassured Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina while speaking to a visiting delegation of Indian journalists recently. Statements of this kind from Bangladesh’s leader point to a new reality for the country, where balancing two…
Read moreMK BHADRAKUMAR | THE G20 in Argentina last weekend turned out to be of great significance for India–China relations. On the sidelines of the event, PM Modi and President Xi Jinping had occasion to interact thrice — one bilateral meeting and a second meeting of BRICS leaders were scheduled in advance and then, lo and…
Read moreFRANCESCO SISCI | FOR 40 years the US worked to smoothly integrate China into the world. Today America has apparently given up on this plan and in any case at the end of the 90 days of truce agreed in the summit between American and Chinese presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, there will be…
Read moreLOOKEAST REPORT | BUOYED by successful trial of cargo movement to Bangladesh via the inland waterways protocol route, India is now preparing to exploit the path for the purpose of tourism, an official said. A transboundary river cruise operation is expected to commence from Kolkata in March next year through Sunderbans to Bangladesh and then…
Read moreLAPHAI SENG RAW | The words of Archbishop Oscar Romero are as poignant today as when first spoken in 1978. Faith does not mean shying away or hiding from the challenges of the world. It means being responsive, compassionate and understanding in the front–line challenges of human life. It is thus a wonderful opportunity for…
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