Quota System Is Wrong for Jobs of Intellect
The premier educational institution of Bangladesh, Dhaka University, is in turmoil lately. Here are two newspaper headlines: 1) Violence, Vandalism at DU over Quota Protest, 2) Thursday's Violence over Quota in BCS Exams: 1,700 BCS Job Seekers Sued.
The Savar Tragedy – a Horrific Flare-up of a National Disease of Bangladesh
The latest news from Savar, Bangladesh, as found in the Daily Star at 6:00 AM US Eastern DST on May 15, 2013, is that 1115 dead bodies have been recovered from the debris of a collapsed eight-story building, and 12 people died in the hospitals after being rescued alive (1). While 2,438 people have been pulled alive, at the end of the rescue operation the number of victims unaccounted for remains uncertain. (While this blog was originally written on April 26, 2013, the casualty figures in this paragraph have been updated on May 15, 2013.)
Non-Muslims in Bangladesh – What Choices Do They Have?
In one of the more remarkable recent attacks on non-Muslims in Bangladesh, a 200 years old Hindu temple was burned down by Muslim criminals. According to a Daily Star report on April 20, 2013, the month of March, 2013, saw 94 attacks on Hindu temples in various districts of Bangladesh. https://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/march-saw-94-attacks/
The Hatred of 'Protecting Islam' Must Stop
The government of Bangladesh has clearly demonstrated that the arrest of three bloggers, Subrata Adhikary Shuvo, Russell Parvez, and Mashiur Rahman Biplob, on April 1, 2013, was no April Fool joke. Bangladesh police also arrested another blogger, Asif Mohiuddin, two days later. What was the reason? The four arrested young men have been alleged to have hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims of Bangladesh. There are no specifics in the news media as to what exactly they wrote in their blogs that hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims.
Appeasing the Islamists – a Distressing Sign for Bangladesh
In a poor country called Bangladesh, recently there has been a surge in heated talk and violent lawlessness. The principal driving forces behind these are the Islamist political parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, Hifazat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The Spirits of 1971 and 2013 (Part III)
This is the third and concluding part of the titled article. For the first and second parts, please see https://enblog.muktomona.com/?p=1802 and https://enblog.muktomona.com/?p=1809.
The Spirits of 1971 and 2013 (Part II)
This article attempts to relate the events of 1971 and 2013 in Bangladesh, and to see how they compare and what we could learn from them. For the first part of the article, please see https://enblog.muktomona.com/?p=1802.
The Spirits of 1971 and 2013
The movement that was started by a group of Bangladeshi youth at the Shahbag intersection in Dhaka on February 5, 2013, has grown tremendously. Initially there was just one podium in Shahbag. Now the youth all over the country have erected "Gonojagoran Manchas" (people's awakening podiums) in almost every sub-district of the country. The youth, led by internet savvy bloggers, have been joined by millions of ordinary people. The movement has been praised by noted intellectuals. It has also been supported by the government, even when the youth did not allow leaders of the governing political party to speak from their "Gonojagoran Manchas." The youth movement has now turned into a people's movement, and it has been coined as 'Spirit of 1971' by a section of the Bangladeshi intelligentsia/media.
Is Shahbag the Solution?
The rally that was started on February 5, 2013, at the Shahbag intersection in Dhaka was against the sentences that were handed down to Abdul Quader Mollah by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). The organizers and the participants of the rally felt that the sentences were too light for the crimes for which he was convicted.
On the Trials and Punishments for the 1971 Crimes against Humanity in Bangladesh
What has been going on in Bangladesh recently is deeply agonizing. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has recently sentenced a 1971 war-crime accused to life imprisonment. To a lot of people in the country, that evidently is not a harsh enough punishment for the convicted criminal. Thus, for more than a week now, a seemingly popular demand has been playing out as a grand rally at a major road intersection in the capital city of Bangladesh.