Who really owned Britain’s royal jewels?
3 HOUR(s)
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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
Bangladesh liberation war memories: An Untold Story
I had written this letter to my friend Hafiz who was then a Lieutenant of the 1st Bengal regiment and was in winter exercise in Chowgacha Police Station of the then Jashore district adjacent to subdivision Jhenaidah where I was posted.
30 January 2022
Global Sixties in Bangladesh: Praetorian Guards and Subaltern Resistance
Like bunches of blood-red Oleander, Like flaming clouds at sunset
Asad’s shirt flutters
In the gusty wind, in the limitless blue.
23 January 2022
Revisiting the Bengal Famine of 1943
The 1930s in Bengal were devastating for the poor. Global depression since 1929 had disabled the economy, and across the province there was ample evidence of starvation.
16 January 2022
Folk songs of East Bengal
East Bengal has a population of about 45 millions and an area of about 15,000 square miles. Less than three per cent of its people have any education in the real sense of the term. The only way in which you can get to know this province, is to study its folk-songs and tales, which mirror its aspirations, achievements and frustrations.
2 January 2022
The indefatigable public intellectual and political mobiliser
A small incident took place at a school in Burdwan in 1944. A class teacher of Grade 7 was wrongly reprimanding a student, accusing him of stacking all the high benches of the classroom against the short ones the previous evening, when a lanky boy stood up and said, “It was not Abanti, it was me.” Impressed by the boy’s moral courage, the teacher excused him.
26 December 2021
Bonbibi: Mother of the eighteen tides
The Sundarbans is the world’s largest mangrove forest and locals generally identify the area as “Badabon” or “Athero Bhatir Desh” (land of the eighteen tides).
19 December 2021
‘I regret that Pakistan has still not formally apologised’
In conversation with Ayesha Jalal, Mary Richardson Professor of History and Director of Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University, USA
15 December 2021
The country my father wanted
We are celebrating the golden jubilee of our country’s independence this year. Fifty years of existence of this sovereign state called Bangladesh; the Bengali people’s thousand-year yearning for statehood finally given tangible shape and form.
13 December 2021
The Great Powers Wash Their Hands
Since March 25, when the Pakistani Army was turned loose on a defenseless East Bengal, events have been unrolling which have been described as not less frightful than the war in Vietnam; and the world has glanced that way, at intervals, and looked away again, and done little or nothing.
12 December 2021
The Christmas the Kolis took to cricket
The year is 1721. There are Indians, many no doubt Bengali, visible on the streets of London, some settled down there, others at a loss, mostly sea-farers off the East India Company ships bringing the Indian fabrics that have become all the fashion, silks worn by the rich, cottons by the poor.
5 December 2021
Mary Frances Dunham: In memoriam
The blood of the farmer is very sweet and everybody wants to taste it;
28 November 2021
Our foremost peasant leader and revolutionary
He was described as an epic hero. His life was intimately involved in the land, labour and language of the poor peasant.
16 November 2021
Hatiya fishermen working in Oman
“We try to stop them, but they want to go. They say that Allah may help them to find a good malik. And so, they go; and we let them go because we need food, because here we don’t have enough.
14 November 2021
Dhirendranath Dutta: Portrait of a patriot
Dhirendranath Dutta was born on November 2, 1886 to a lower middle-income family in Ramrail village of Brahmanbaria sub-division under Tripura district, now known as Cumilla.
7 November 2021
Maj. Gen. Ishfakul Majid: Soldier & Gentleman
Mohammad Ishfakul Majid was born on 17 March, 1903 in Jorhat, Assam, Bengal Presidency in British India, to an illustrious old
31 October 2021
Fazlul Huq and the Bangalee Muslim question
The phrase “Bangalee Muslim” is generally regarded as a “living oxymoron,” and the Bangalee Muslims are considered to be perennially trapped in a dilemma of identity over their Bangaleeness and Muslimness.
25 October 2021
Battle Ground Baliadanga- A milestone in our liberation war
September 20, 1971, is an unforgettable day in the liberation war of Bangladesh. On this day, 17 freedom fighters laid down their lives in the sodden battleground at Baliadanga, Satkhira. During the battle, only 62 brave soldiers of the Muktibahini,
24 October 2021
SM Sultan: An early portrait
These are the facts of Sultan’s life that have significance for the study of his paintings. He spent his boyhood in the villages of Bengal.
10 October 2021
Syud Hossain and his times
Scion of an illustrious family, Syud Hossain was born in Armanitola, Dhaka in 1888. His great great grandfather was Mir Ashraf Ali, whose great grandson,
3 October 2021
Legacy of the Kumar of Bhawal
Prior to the abolition of Zamindari in East Bengal (Bangladesh) in accordance with the ‘East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950’, the Bhawal zamindar estate was the second largest feudal landholding in the Dhaka district.
26 September 2021