Who really owned Britain’s royal jewels?
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In Focus
The 25,000-year history of betel nut chewing
17 September 2026
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In Focus
The world map we know is distorted. Why does it matter?
15 September 2026
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In Focus
Bengal and the coming of Islam: A story of soil and spirit
14 September 2026
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In Focus
Xuanzang’s travels to Bengal and beyond : The man, the pilgrim and the Monkey King
11 September 2026
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In Focus
Professor Anisur Rahman: The economist who put people at the centre
10 September 2026
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In Focus
APO 433: Dhaka’s forgotten post office of World War II
9 September 2026
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In Focus
Dadabhai Naoroji: The man who exposed the economics of British colonialism
8 September 2026
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In Focus
Untold stories of 1971 through private letters
7 September 2026
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In Focus
The extraordinary journey of Atish Dipankar Srigyan
6 September 2026
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In Focus
Ethical encounters: A look into women, war, and cinema in Bangladesh
A modern remake of Ajoy Kar’s 1961 film Saptapodi, Shameem Akhtar’s film Rina Brown (2017) unfolds intimate geographies of love and loss among individuals from India, and West and East Pakistan.
23 October 2022
Love Me Do: Sixty years ago, the Beatles began to play
Sixty years ago, John, Paul, George, and Ringo released their first single, Love Me Do, on October 5, 1962. It was a Parlophone 7-inch 45rpm with the seal 45-R 4949.
16 October 2022
Gandhi’s sojourn in Noakhali
There are many ways a nation’s history can be understood, for it has many points, opinions, and arguments depending on the sources one can reach.
2 October 2022
Student politics in private universities: To be or not to be …
On September 2, the student front of a political party announced its intention to form committees in 16 private universities. It was greeted with apprehension and alarm.
25 September 2022
The glorious history of Goalanda
There is more fiction than historical truth about the origin of the name ‘Goalanda’. According to a legend,
18 September 2022
1971 and the case for secularism in Bangladesh and India
Bangladesh has just celebrated fifty years of independence; this year also marks fifty years since its Ganoparishad ratified the Constitution of Bangladesh. Anniversaries are as worthy occasions as any to recall why certain ideological principles were chosen to guide the new nation.
11 September 2022
50 Years of Bangladeshi Advertising
The history of advertising in Bengal is as old as the history of modern print media in Asia. The first Asian newspaper -- The Calcutta General Advertiser -- was published from the British Bengal in 1780.
4 September 2022
Where do the ‘disappeared’ disappear to?
While their families search every alleyway, survivors say that they lived right around the corner in the capital city.
29 August 2022
‘Bulbuli’: Nazrul’s music for future listeners?
We were at the dinner table. My wife asked if I had seen Bulbuli, the Coke Studio Bangla song. Till then I hadn’t. The upload was only a few days old.
28 August 2022
Death and Displacement in Syed Waliullah’s Partition Stories
Perhaps the starkest image of the Partition, which created the two independent states of India and Pakistan in 1947, is that of the train massacres.
21 August 2022
Partition 1947: PARTITION or UNITY? BENGAL in 1947
Between May 9 and 14, 1947, in Sodepur near Calcutta, Mahatma Gandhi had a fascinating set of conversations with Hindu and Muslim leaders of Bengal.
14 August 2022
Chakma resistance to British rule
The Battle of Plassey and the Battle of Boxar were the imperial wars between the East India Company and the Mughal authority, which in turn gave the Company a legal status in Bengal.
7 August 2022
Memories of my father
A child’s memory of her parent is often difficult to narrate. There is no single narrative, no linear structure. There are so many stories, so many events that fold into each other.
31 July 2022
In memory of my teacher
It is, indeed, a great pleasure for me to avail myself the opportunity to say a few words on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the late Professor A. K. Nazmul Karim, who was my teacher, supervisor and colleague at the Department of Sociology,
31 July 2022
The forgotten mutiny for India’s independence
One of the most important but undervalued events of India’s independence movement was the naval revolt of 1946, about which Indian historian Sumit Sarker wrote,
24 July 2022
Dr Muhammad Shahidullah: A tribute
Dr Shahidullah is one of the greatest linguists that the South Asian region has produced. This is a universally acknowledged fact and one can easily use it as the beginning statement of an article on him.
17 July 2022
University of Dhaka: The Trillion Dollar Opportunity Cost
Unlike in Western universities, the teaching staff of DU is constituted of her own brilliant graduates, but the brilliance of result is seldom the guarantee of excellence in teaching and competence in research.
3 July 2022
Plassey: Myths and reality
Each year on 23 June arrives an occasion of template lament for Bengalis: the defeat of Siraj-ud-daulah at Plassey at the hands of forces led by Robert Clive—and Bengal’s subsequent quick subjugation by the East India Company.
26 June 2022
A novice’s sadhusongo
In the early 2000’s, a concept restaurant was opened in my birth-town, Paris, France, named “In the Dark” (“Dans le Noir”). Clients enter a completely dark space, and are served a set menu which, obviously, they cannot see.
19 June 2022
The Making of Theatre: There are no secrets
What makes theatre good, bad or even deadly? I thought I knew the answer to this tricky question. I had a valid ground for this belief because more than thirty years ago, the pre-eminent playwright of Bangladesh,
12 June 2022