Afsan Chowdhury – Page 7

And what if this lockdown doesn’t work?

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - July 6, 2021July 6, 2021

It’s 5 days on since the strict lockdown and the jury is still out whether it’s having an impact or not. It’s true that this lockdown is stricter than the ones before but one is not sure if that is enough. More people have been arrested and fined its true

Zoom and Destiny in jail

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - July 5, 2021July 5, 2021

There is no doubt that the owner of Destiny, who was making a Zoom call from his hospital bed, is very offended. He has had to go back to jail from his hospital bed where he was languishing for the last two months no one is sure what his serious

Reading China wrong: A hundred year old Western problem

Article

- Afsan Chowdhury - July 3, 2021July 3, 2021

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now 100 years old and celebrating it. That’s great news for the Party. However it’s not so great for the West who had been waiting for its demise since its birth. Worse, conventional wisdom about how socialism and capitalism behaves and that it can

Jihadists will be here but will not be a threat

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - July 2, 2021July 3, 2021

Around this time five years back a café in Gulshan was attacked by Islamist jihadists and many sat down to declare that Islamists were about to take over Bangladesh. Western media were the shrillest, some even wondering if Bangladesh had become a failed state. The jihadists by then had killed

Inu’s words on GOB’s Covid anxiety deserve attention

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 30, 2021June 30, 2021

Inu belongs to the JSD which is an alliance member of the ruling party led Government so his words are not coming from hostile lips. He has said in the parliament that the dithering of the Government on the lockdown issue raises concern that it is experiencing unease on the

This lockdown matters, dear government

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 29, 2021June 29, 2021

Lockdown is now part of our vocabulary but also of the public imagination of a government not taking the pandemic battling as it should be. There have been lockdowns before but none were effective and the result has been a considerable lack of confidence in the ability of the government

Virus is smarter than you Health Ministry

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 27, 2021June 27, 2021

The Health Minister has often defended his staff from corruption accusations. However he hasn’t done so regarding their efficiency and performance. This is good. He is a realist and knows that it isn’t exactly a shining example of quality performance. However, why he can’t make them perform better is not

Bangladesh and the new cold war

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 25, 2021June 25, 2021

That a cold war is on, between the West on one side and China and Russia on the other is no secret. It’s the most evident bit of reality that is shaping the new world. The West is a conglomerate of many countries but all now weaker in comparison to

Islamists on the back foot, GOB steps up

Editorial

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 23, 2021June 23, 2021

The clampdown on Islamists of various kinds is a new trend. The present government was once dubbed as “Islamist”: friendly by its critics particularly after it held Hefazat’s hands post 2013. Although the Islamists were actually trying to bring the AL government down and the move was supported by the

Refugees are victims of political societies

Article

- Afsan Chowdhury - June 21, 2021June 21, 2021

The refugees that populate the world are a good reminder that ordinary states don’t fail but the world as a whole has failed. These failures are global in nature and show that coping mechanisms of society in general have failed. The clash with economics and sociology versus politics is hitting