At dawn on Bangla New Year, Ramna Park wears a festive look. People from all areas of Dhaka city as well as different parts of the country congregate at the verdant ground to celebrate Pahela Baishakh.

Kamrul Hussain, a small trader in Cumilla, sits sprawled across a sofa in his comfortable two-room apartment in the city. He is gloating. “I cannot wait for us to become a developing country. I might actually be able to buy this place if that happens,” he says.

My work visa in Tanzania was about to expire, and I needed to do a quick trip out of the country in order to renew it. I couldn't be gone for too long, so it made sense to go somewhere nearby—to one of the neighbouring countries, like… Kenya. Plus, I had a friend in Nairobi whom I hadn't seen in years, which also meant free accommodation...

Dhali Al Mamoon turned time into a portal to gaze back or gauge a blind side of history of the subcontinent—the colonial legacy—which is laden with grief and shame at the loss of the capacity for articulation that Dhali feels has resulted in forfeiting an authentic artistic language in favour of one that alienates a person from one's self.

As a reconnaissance of what seems like a neural landscape, Soma Surovi Jannat's oeuvre seems to hover over the "plain of immanence" perceived as Spinoza's "single substance" (God/Nature), thereby, lending

Among the thousands that throng the railway station every day, are those who make their homes and some, their livelihoods, in and around the station. They hawk goods, or more often, beg for a living travelling on the trains from station to station. Amidst the hubbub of the arriving and departing trains, they live and sleep on the busy platforms. Children roam around recklessly.

Last month, Star Weekend conducted an online survey to explore incidents of sexual harassment, misconduct and violence on university campuses and found that 70 percent of students from public and private universities who took part in the survey have faced some level of sexual harassment on campus. A total of 200 students from different public and private universities participated.

The city is like a text. It always gives us clues in many forms into its inner world. Reading those signs may allow us to see a pattern leading to the city's psycho-social world. Why is this even important? Because this is the invisible landscape that conditions the visible one, determining the way we behave in the city. Let us consider Dhaka. How does living in Dhaka feel ? It is like being on perpetual tenterhooks.

People have been talking about it from the beginning of the year, and whispering about it for longer—private banks are going through a liquidity crisis. There is not enough money in hand to make the rounds, and the extent of the problem came to light last week when the government had to intervene to help them deal with the crunch.

Rupa shows me the broken glass of a bookshelf in the bedroom, which her son Rakin had shattered by banging his head against it, not half an hour before I entered their home in Mohammadpur last week. He had done something similar last year, which had required 10 stitches on his face. This time, luckily, Rakin had no injuries. His mother was still shaken, the accident a vivid reminder that her world can be turned upside down in a second, though she works hard all day to ensure a regular routine for her autistic son.

“A campus forever linked to liberation" by Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan in the Star Weekend on March 23 is a laudable effort to glorify the historical monuments of DU. Multilinguist Dr Muhammad Shahidullah had said, "mother, mother language and motherland are favorite and respectable affairs to all". Our mother language, Bangla, was preserved through the historic language movement in 1952 that initiated at

Being a MasterChef takes hard work and maybe even losing a finger or two. Every chef has harrowing tales of losing a bit of forefinger or pinkie at least once. I would not know. But I believe I could have been a superb chef. As do many other men and women. As the saying goes, believing is half the, er, achievement? Are you a believer? Here's how you can believe more authentically.

Youth Talks, A skill and personality development workshop

When I first stepped in Tokyo streets, getting out of the Aoyama Itchome subway station, it was late evening, and it was raining, as it would rain casually in any season in Dhaka. The modernist styled buildings reminded me of a Motijheel, the sound of light water drops on the pitch black roads reminded me of Dhaka's soundscape in any

Matir Projar Deshe (English title: Kingdom of Clay Subjects), the debut feature by Bijon Imtiaz, has been on the radar of the serious Bangladeshi cinephile for a couple of years now, as news popped up sporadically of the film going to one film festival or another. After winning Best Film at Chicago South Asian Film Festival (ahead of heavyweights like Hansal Mehta's Aligarh and double-winner at Cannes

In 1971, Zahir Raihan, renowned feature filmmaker, made a documentary entitled Stop Genocide. The documentary played an important role in drawing international attention to Bangladesh's cause of liberation. Yet, this documentary, in my opinion, transcends beyond such historical specificity. Meaning, even though the film documents a reality of a particular country and its people, I think it holds a deeper criticism for the common human condition

There was a meeting of the Mahila Parishad's Shongram Committee at the Azimpur Ladies' Club today. Many young women attended. People are so enthusiastic these days. Some men, too, joined in. They expressed their wholehearted support. Amidst so much sadness, this gives so much hope.

The content of the newspaper stand at 73 Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, a neighbourhood in New York City, is a mirror reflection of one halfway across the world anywhere in Dhaka. In place of the usual NYC newsstand fare, the New York Post or any of the other local tabloids, these stands proudly display an array of newspapers in Bangla.

In the days and weeks following the 2016 presidential elections, reports surfaced about how a small British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, might have played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's surprise victory. The company claimed to have formulated algorithms to influence American voters using individually targeted political advertisements. It reportedly generated personality profiles of millions of

Female education is widely believed to benefit society through both economic and non-economic channels. However, the gender gap in education has excessively focused (and bettered) on school enrolment, while ignoring what is happening within the schooling process.