How to survive a loving wife (featuring a guy called Guy)

A couple of weeks ago, a guy I will refer to as Guy (for his safety) made the unholy blunder of giving a Ha-Ha react to a comment that did not meet the approval of his wife.
16 May 2019

One hundred years of madness

Many hours later as he faced the only open window in his room, Shafiq was to remember that distant afternoon when he took his first born to see the undulating sand dunes of the vast desert.
16 May 2019

A reminder that trees are alive

To call it ‘climate fiction’ would barely scratch the surface of what it really is. Richard Powers’ The Overstory—winner of this year’s
16 May 2019

Politics of survival: Listening to the (street) children in Dhaka

This narrative is not about how adults think of the way (street) children live their lives. This, too, is also not about policy prescription—
16 May 2019

Ghartera Edition 0: Junkyard

“Unlearning is a long process”. It’s doubtful to me that if we were to assemble an ensemble of artists, curators, gallerists, collectors
9 May 2019

Why is a fat, grieving superhero funny?

As far as grand finales go, Avengers: Endgame—the curtain call on this batch of the Marvel cinematic saga—gets a lot of things right.
9 May 2019

Who is fantasy for?

If I say fantasy, what do you imagine? Castles, knights, dragons, and different fantasy ‘races’ (by which one means dwarves, elves and
9 May 2019

City hawkers and the public space challenge

Everything is going as is at the traffic signal beside Dhanmondi road number 32, when all of a sudden, the jhalmuriwalah hoists up his
9 May 2019

The Long March of a Protester

Mizanur Rahman, long-time resident of Dhaka’s Jurain neighbourhood, hit the headlines last month with his bold and innovative
9 May 2019

The Massacre of Norms

As India’s marathon elections enter their penultimate phase, the nation may be getting weary of the apparently never-ending
9 May 2019

Play like a girl

The female footballers were able to triumph over people’s, including many of their parents’, disapproval. The girls are shattering the
9 May 2019

Childhood sexual harassment

“Intimate acts of violence” was a good piece of writing on the writer’s horrific childhood experience of sexual harassment. Such
9 May 2019

Intimate acts of violence

This magazine includes meaningful and at times, groundbreaking, articles by regular writers as well as refreshingly new ones. One such
9 May 2019

THE POWER POLITICS OF FIGHTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE

Last month, Star Weekend, The Daily Star conducted an online survey to explore incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace.
9 May 2019

Former religious, genocidal party forms new non-religious, genocidal party

Rudolph Shitler and Joseph Phony yesterday shocked the world by joining hands in what has been dubbed by the media an “unholy
9 May 2019

Editor’s Note

We, as a people, are fond of referring to our glorious and revolutionary history; and yet, a crucial part of that revolutionary history, that of our labour movement(s), remains neglected, at least in mainstream discourses. This special May Day issue is an attempt, albeit a modest one, to highlight some of these omissions.
2 May 2019

Colonial Legacies, Capitalist Presents: National Interests vs Labour Interests?

The post Rana Plaza period is often seen as a turning point for labour organising in the garment sector, given critical amendments to the labour law, implementation of the Accord and Alliance, as well as the increased scrutiny of international pressure from buyers and others.
2 May 2019

The Roy-Lenin debate on colonial policy

Before the opening of the Second World Congress of the Communist International (July 19-August 7, 1920) [which met on the first day in Petrograd but subsequently in Moscow], Lenin prepared a draft thesis on the national and colonial question. M. N. Roy, a young Bengali attending his first international Communist gathering, eagerly responded to Lenin’s request for criticisms.
2 May 2019

The Spectre of Communism

Alongside playing an active role in the independence movement, the Communist Party had begun working on organising labourers, farmers and other workers in then East Bengal since 1937-38. Here we are talking about the Party’s activities among the labourersin East Bengal.
2 May 2019

Workers’ cry in workers’ land

Bangladesh is a workers’ land. More than seven million people are working here as manufacturing workers, nearly nine million in hotels and tea shops, more than four million in transport, two million in construction and more than 20 million women and men are actively engaged in agriculture.
2 May 2019