A weekly newspaper offering bold opinion, critical analysis & fresh perspectives. Print every week. Online daily. #CounterpointBD
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Two Bangladeshi citizens have been executed in Saudi Arabia. The public has been told that they engaged in “immoral acts” in a mosque in the Mecca region. What precisely constituted the alleged offence, however, remains unclear in the publicly available account. Whether they received meaningful consular assistance throughout their detention and trial is also unclear.
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When we host a meal at home and there are Hindu friends among the guests, we do not cook beef. This is a matter of simple courtesy.
Our Hindu friends, when they invite us to their homes, make arrangements for us to pray. I have seen that many non-Muslim families in Bangladesh even keep a prayer mat for this purpose.
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Let's call a spade a spade.
The execution of a young Bangladeshi couple in Saudi Arabia is a travesty of justice and lays bare the grotesque cancer that lies at the heart of that benighted country.
What a tragedy it is for the Muslim world that our Holy places have fallen into the hands of such a backward and barbarous tribe and that they can and do use their vast wealth to spread misery and malice the length and breadth of this planet.
What a bitter irony that the most unjust, hypocritical, uncivilized, and malignant country on Earth is the one that has the most influence over the rest of the Muslim world.
What Bangladesh Must Do About the Travesty of Justice in Saudi counterpointbd.com/What-Bang…
Two Bangladeshi citizens, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Siti Akhtar, were executed in Saudi Arabia on 14 October. Their families, their government and their "Bangladesh" consulate appear to have learned of it only after it was done.
Whatever one thinks of the alleged act, this should outrage anyone who believes in due process. Two lives were taken through a process no one outside the Saudi system was allowed to see.
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Citizens are told that auto-rickshaws cannot be banned because millions depend on them for a living. That argument is sound for the drivers, who are among the poorest workers in the city. It is not an argument for shielding the people who profit from an unregulated supply chain.
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Bangladesh must cultivate a digital culture rooted in empathy. Technology should not isolate; it should connect. Digital spaces should encourage respectful dialogue, creativity, and community-building. The country’s digital future will be shaped not only by infrastructure and innovation but by the values that guide its use.
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Anyone who says the anger in Britain has no basis has not been listening. Rents take half a wage in London and much of the south. Waiting lists for social housing run into years. Whole towns in England have no dentist willing to take NHS patients, so people pay privately or go without.
When I sit in front rooms asking people about their lives, these are the things that come up before anyone mentions migrants, and they come up with more feeling.
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A marriage certificate does not make a wife a compulsory lender. A husband’s need can explain why he asks for help; it cannot supply her consent.
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A visitor to Islamabad would likely sooner rather than later come to the ineluctable question: How is it that a country with such an apparently functional capital city and governance structure remain mired in such a dysfunctional mess.
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On the drive to Dubai airport, our chauffeur spoke fluent English. He was from Pakistan, and he told us he had arrived in the UAE as a construction worker, then got a UAE driving licence from a local school and more than doubled his pay. His path is open, in principle, to any migrant worker. Yet most Bangladeshis abroad never make that jump.
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Ordinary people in Britain have plenty to be angry about. Those grievances are real, and I hear them often. The question is who caused them, and whether the evidence supports the claim that migrants are draining the country.
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Against the grim backdrop of urban neglect, the need for radical transformation in municipal planning becomes clear, demanding an empathetic framework where human welfare takes precedence over chaotic growth
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True inclusivity means bridging the gaps that keep the dispossessed silent. Only then can a purportedly democratic society begin to hear those at its margins, as active political subjects, not just data points.
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Sometimes there is a locked gate. Sometimes there is family honour, the marriage market, or the comforting language of protection. And sometimes it may appear at an immigration counter as an apparently ordinary question: Are you married?
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If Puja holidays damage the economy, calculate the economic cost of holidays demanded for one's own religious occasions as well.
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If Puja holidays damage the economy, calculate the economic cost of holidays demanded for one's own religious occasions as well.
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The rain came down in sheets over Ishwardi that April morning when the first fuel assemblies were lowered into the Rooppur reactor core. Green and red flags snapped in the wind. Officials in dark suits stood on a concrete viewing platform, watching the future of Bangladeshi energy descend, rod by rod, into a Russian-designed vessel on the banks of the Padma.
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A war doesn't have to cross a country's border before it impacts that country's economy. Sometimes, just as bad is when a trade route gets too risky for ships to use. A clear example can be found in the Red Sea crisis.
After commercial ships were attacked by Yemen's Houthi movement, and then military actions were taken in response, which resulted in an increase in regional tensions, a shipping lane that connects Asian manufacturing hubs to European markets has been affected.
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Bangladesh may be approaching a consequential foreign policy decision: Whether to commit its armed forces to a conflict in Yemen that has already exacted a devastating humanitarian toll.
Whatever the diplomatic or financial incentives that may be offered, such a deployment would be a strategic mistake of historic proportions.
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