The humanitarian needs of the victims of the floods are urgent and immediately obvious. Clean drinking water, food, shelter, clothing, and medicine to help maintain the dignity and capabilities of the tens of millions of people affected by the raging floods in the Khyber-Pahktankhwa Province. Unfortunately dense fog and a running forecast of heavier rain has stymied […]
Looks like it is oil spill season. Even as the news and uproar about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is still fresh, there has been a fresh spill, albeit smaller, off the coast of Mumbai. This one was caused when two Panamanian flagged cargo ships – MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia-111 – […]
We sit pat in August, in what is likely to be a set of hazier days, than the hot set just recently passed. But seven day out July is still fresh in our minds. Is it not? The month just passed in Bangladesh might strike anyone as a set of strides in the direction […]
A satirical take on the ‘War on Terror,’ Tere Bin Laden earns its radical chops simply for being a completely Indian production on a story entirely based in Pakistan.
In 55 days 49 civilians have died in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) with no sings of public protests waning any time soon. Despite all efforts of the State administration to impose curfew, the people continue to challenge the writ of the Government. A lull after the first round of protests was deceptive and public violence […]
Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Laureate and the first universally acclaimed Bengali poet died 69 years ago today. Cultural fora and celebrations in India and Bangladesh mark this day every year. And though there’s much to say about his accomplishments, I can say little about the man or the tremendous impact he’s had on Bengali letters. Therefore, […]
India desperately needs to enact momentous labor and educational reforms in order to capitalize on its demographic dividend and secure its economic future. Whether the country’s political class can muster the requisite will to do so, however, is a perilously open question.
The Awami League government has rounded up all the usual suspects, pushed and pulled away from their seats of power and carnage. Its almost as if it were spring, just so and Sheikh Hasina thought it was time to clean house. In the first instance and most recently, the paramilitary group Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) […]
A day after India celebrates the 141st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who led a non-violent struggle against the British rule, India will showcase her continued nominal ties with the British Empire by hosting the Commonwealth Games (CWG). However, the 2010 CWG have become more an arena of political wrangling and administrative corruption […]
Its hard to imagine the stake-holder that he had in mind when President Asif Ali Zardari had his chat with a reporter for Le Monde. He is on record to have claimed: “The international community, to which Pakistan belongs, is losing the war against the Taliban. “This is above all because we have lost the […]
Four top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami have been arrested and stand accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the murder of Bengali intellectuals during the Pakistani military’s strategic massacre of then East Pakistan’s Bengali and Hindu communities. The Daily Star reports, quite movingly: “They are no stranger to court. They stood in the dock […]
The principle of ‘Democracy’ has been re-enshrined in the politics and constitutional policy-making in Bangladesh. That at least is what The Daily Star wants you, my reader, to think. Quite apart from the sheer nonsense of the claim, the Supreme Court (SC) of Bangladesh released the text of a ruling it had delivered some months […]
The recent floods in Khyber Pakhtankhwa Province, triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains, has killed at least 1,100 while another estimated 27,000 are still stranded in their homes, already washed away, wiped away from every map but that of one’s mind. The casualties in Peshawar and the surrounding areas will surely mount in the days […]
Zainab Jeewanjee highlights Ambassador Haqqani’s response to the Wikileaks Reports on Charlie Rose. Jeewanjee draws on Hussain Haqqani’s insights to elaborate on his notion that history is to be taken into account, in tandem with ground realities before sensationalizing the Wikileaks story to implicate Pakistan for “not doing enough”.
