Daily Newspaper in Bangladesh || Most Popular Online Newportal in Bangladesh

Author Information Not Found!!!

Syed Badrul Ahsan

Yahya Jammeh is not a household name, but in his native Gambia he has been president for twenty two years. One can safely assume that all this long period in power has been reliant on the force of authoritarianism. But about three weeks ago, when Gambians voted to elect Adama Barrow as their next president, ...

The story of our presidents . . .

IN BLACK & WHITE

Syed Badrul Ahsan

President Abdul Hamid has had a good meeting with the BNP leadership. His election as Bangladesh's twentieth president a few years ago certainly made one feel good, for the simple reason that the new occupant of Bangabhaban was a good, decent man and of course a time-tested politician. He has a remarkable grasp on the ...

Countdown to Bangladesh 1971

Syed Badrul Ahsan

194023 March: A conference of the All-India Muslim League, meeting in Lahore, adopts a resolution calling for the creation of independent states for Muslims in the subcontinent.194616 August: Hindu-Muslim riots break out in Calcutta following a call for Direct Action by the Muslim League. Over four days, thousands of Hindus and Muslims lose their lives ...

From The Pages Of History

From East Pakistan to Bangla Desh to Bangladesh

Syed Badrul Ahsan

When as a schoolboy I met Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman --- and that was on a warm July day in 1970 in Quetta, Baluchistan --- he put his hands on my cheeks, pulled them with much affection and asked me if I did not want to go home. Deshe jaabi na? That was the way ...

Cover Story

Memories of a long-ago war . . .

Syed Badrul Ahsan

I was sixteen in 1971, studying in the Senior Cambridge class at St Francis Grammar School in Quetta, Pakistan. Between the general election of December 1970 and March 1971, I was happy at the prospect of a Bengali political leader, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, taking over as Pakistan's Prime Minister in Islamabad. His party had ...

The whispers of history

Syed Badrul Ahsan

There are all those disturbing moments when we are persuaded into believing that we are fast turning into a nation with a declining sense of history. And that is pretty amazing, considering that history has always been the foundation of our societal existence, that through making history at the crossroads of our nationhood we have ...

Ayub Khan, Louis Kahn . . . and Pakistan's flag

Syed Badrul Ahsan

In the early 1960s, the self-styled Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan had a brainwave. Dhaka, the capital of the province of East Pakistan, he decided in the infinity of his wisdom, needed to be reinvented as the Second Capital of Pakistan. He and his regime got in touch with the reputed American architect Louis I. ...

Comment

Ayub Khan, Louis Kahn . . . and Pakistan's flag

Syed Badrul Ahsan

When starlight fades . . .

Syed Badrul Ahsan

Something of aesthetics passes with the demise of a good artiste. Rosy Afsari was tall, was fair and she had in her being a strong dose of the feminine personality which easily translated into grace. We who went to school in the 1960s were mesmerized by that grace in her, even if she was not ...

Dhaka's Rohingya dilemma

Syed Badrul Ahsan

For Bangladesh, it is that old dilemma: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In these past few weeks, the country has been under pressure from global human rights bodies as also governments and organisations in the West to permit Rohingya Muslims fleeing repression in Myanmar entry into the country. In other words, the ...