Zahid Maleque, you're unfit to lead
Leading a team during the time of emergency require skills to overcome the challenges. And a health emergency is something else that needs precisely more specialized capacity to deal with. Bangladesh as well as other nations are fighting a non-visible enemy, the Covid-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus that first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December and wreaked havoc in other parts of the world by now.
When prayers can kill
''How reckless a government has to become to leave one of the most important decisions of one of the most severe public health crisis humanity is ever to encounter in the mercy of the Islamist zealots who have no ties with science, public health or medicine?.''
Free thinking movement in Bangladesh and nightmare
On February 26, 2020 it will be five years since Avijit Roy was killed brutally by Islamist extremists as he was making his way back from the Dhaka Book Fair. During these five years, Bangladesh has been passing through a nightmare; a nightmare from which it is not likely to be released in the near future. The online free thinking movement, that was initiated by Avijit Roy, has been shrinking due to various governmental and societal pressures. Legal actions are being taken by the government against anybody who would question blind faith, even the traditional spiritual nonsectarian humanism that was practiced in Bengal since ancient times is slowly being crushed. Here we remember what Tagore wrote: The truth is ruthless, yet I fell in love with the ruthlessness. Humankind has chosen the path of truth, that path is ruthless. On this day, we remember the sacrifice that Avijit and his other fallen kindred spirits made to pave a rational path of humanism and logic.