Life in the Time of Corona
By Rashid Askari
We have to adopt ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure’ policy for Bangladesh because the curative measures available in Bangladesh are not adequate for our needs.
Short Story: The virgin whore
By Rashid Askari
Really the Hindu girls were sweeter than the Muslim ones. He claimed to be a devout Muslim. He disliked everything of other religions except for women. He loved to graze in others’ fields leaping over the fence. He became the right producer of Angurbala.
Book Review: Rashid Askari’s ‘Nineteen Seventy One and Other Stories’
By Bina Biswas
In Nineteen Seventy One and Other Stories, Askari’s fictional aesthetic focuses on the exploration of characters, their motive, and psychology. His privileging of psychology over plot, characters’ interiority over external action frees his stories from the generic conventions of popular fiction. In the true modernist vein, the stories bring together psychological realism and physicality.
Papiya Ghosh’s Writings on Bihari Muslims
By Raziuddin Aquil
Unlike Papiya Ghosh, no other historian of Islam and Muslims in the Hindu majority province of Bihar and its adjoining areas, including parts of eastern UP, has been able to come up with a more synthetic account of the murky history of the community, with all its social stratifications and religious diversities (ashraf/arzal, Shia/Sunni, etc.).
Bangladesh Militancy: New Affiliations and Operational Shifts
By Athul M
the main aim of the attackers was to conduct a mass impact attack than a mass casualty attack. This is in line with the modus operandi of domestic militant groups in Bangladesh, such as the Jama’at-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Behind the Dhaka attack: radical secularisation and Islamist terror in Bangladesh
By Mosarrap H. Khan
Beyond talk of an ISIS-inspired attack, the Dhaka cafe massacre’s more immediate roots lie in a crisis of political legitimacy, and religion’s precarious position and instrumentalisation within the national imaginary.
Book Review: ‘Between the Map and the Memory’
By Bhaswati Ghosh
Given the ongoing nature of personal histories forged by the Partition of India, re-storying seems not only a worthwhile but even a necessary exercise, if one is to make sense of the histories that stitch the lacerated subconscious of the populace scattered over India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
Book Exceprt: From Begum, Bengali Muslim women’s weekly magazine
By Rebeka Sultana Chowdhury
Whenever we talk about women claiming their rightful place in society and state, we can’t avoid the question of their educational backwardness. It is often said that uneducated women will never be able claim their right to the state.
Bangladesh: A Nation Divided
By Mosarrap H. Khan
About a month after I watched these two films in Kolkata, I landed in Dhaka toward the middle of December, 2011 with the twin purpose of attending a conference of Bengal studies and conducting research for my study on Muslim everyday life in the sub-continent. Once in Dhaka, I could feel an air of excitement and celebration on the occasion of Bangladesh’s fortieth anniversary of its independence.
Photo Essay: Geneva Camp, Dhaka
By Mosarrap H. Khan
There are around 5000 families living in the camp and there are only about 200 toilets. There are no schools and healthcare facilities in the camp. There is a high drop-out rate among school-going children. Most of the inhabitants of the camp work as mechanics, drivers, cooks, and domestic help.
What led a nation to Shahbag and where it leads to?
By Zahid Husain
The ongoing war crimes trials and the fallout from the verdicts justify the necessity of a progressive movement like Shahbag. The movement epitomizes the frustrations of generations who disapprove of the path Bangladesh has been walking since its independence. A country that adopted secularism as its fundamental tenet has drifted too far from its original promise of a progressive society. Bangladesh and Shahbag in that respect share a converging future, as the outcomes of this movement will ultimately determine the long term status of Bangladesh.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 