For the past several weeks, thousands have rallied around a single issue: bringing to justice the collaborators who, in early 1971, helped the Pakistani military put down the Bengali nationalist movement. The timing might seem strange, since the demands for justice are coming well over four decades after the tragic events. But they are part […]
A peaceful mass secular protest involving people from all walks of life, spearheaded by a tech savvy young generation, apparently independent from political parties, seeking accountability for war crimes committed in 1971. This has been Shahbag, a square in the centre of Dhaka, Bangladesh, an (almost) non-stop protest since February 5. The positive aspects are obvious to […]
Of all the natural resources on which the world depends, the supply and demand situation is most critical for water. There are replacements for oil, but no substitute for water, which is essential to produce virtually all the goods in the marketplace. Asia, not Africa, is the world’s driest continent. The gap between demand and […]
While India’s relationship with its western neighbor Pakistan has been faltering despite concerted efforts, on the eastern front a new bonhomie is forming with Bangladesh. The recent signing of a new extradition treaty and visa regime between India and Bangladesh, signed by Indian home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, […]
t every South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference member states advocate strengthening regional integration through the creation of some kind of common economic union, expanding people-to-people contacts, and reclaiming South Asia’s shared heritage. No doubt engagement between these eight nations has increased over the years. Trade between the bloc and people to people contacts have […]
BANGLADESH suffered a violent birth. In the last days of 1971 the country then called East Pakistan was engulfed by torture, rape, mass-killing and other acts of genocide. The main perpetrators were Pakistani troops bent on preventing secession from “West Pakistan”. But the army had the support of many of East Pakistan’s fundamentalist groups, including […]
Bangladesh was the original development “basket case”, the demeaning term used in Henry Kissinger’s state department for countries that would always depend on aid. Its people are crammed onto a flood plain swept by cyclones and without big mineral and other natural resources. It suffered famines in 1943 and 1974 and military coups in 1975, […]
Hurricane Sandy’s pummeling of the eastern United States has already thrown the presidential campaign off course and disrupted early voting in several states, but could she be the deciding factor in this election? Political scientists have found that bad weather on Election Day typically benefits Republicans, but how much Sandy will affect voter turnout on November 6 remains a mystery. […]
India’s remarkable growth figures have, however, successfully masked a far less appealing set of statistics which shows that, despite the success of India’s middle class, when you look at government delivery of basic services to the poor, India has been struggling against being hyphenated less with China than with its more desperate and impoverished neighbours […]
VISITORS to the showroom of the “Everything is Good” jade company in the Chinese border town of Ruili are swiftly steered towards one particular lump of black rock among many thousands on display. It looks innocuous enough, but a small slash on one side, revealing a translucent green and purple interior, betrays its true worth: […]
looking beyond borders 