With this issue of Forum, we draw the curtain on this publication. Seven years since its inception that the monthly magazine has been in continuous print, it does sadden us to bring it to a close. Much that we would…
Blogger and Shahbagh activist Ahmed Rajib Haider’s murder on February 15th has opened a can of worms that goes by the name of ‘atheism’. While within the Shahbagh movement’s main demands of justice for war crimes and more recently the…
Since the Shahbagh movement began in early February, demanding the maximum punishments for the war criminals and the banning of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), there has been a flurry of activities among the Islamists. Various groups and alliances have emerged. The organisers…
It is a logic which a simple child would understand that a crime should be investigated and criminals should be punished. But the usurpers made simple logic seem impractical and unimaginable cruelty easily ignorable. Forcing a raped woman to see…
The unfolding of recent political events is now subject to endless interpretations of what happened and theories on why it happened. We live in a particular time and society where there is no common reality, but rather divergent realities where…
In 2010 the Bangladesh government established an International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) to try war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. In the 40 years that have elapsed since the liberation war, the…
Four centuries ago, Abu Fazl, the Chief Advisor to Emperor Akbar wrote, “In the country of Bengal…owing to the climate’s favoring the base, the dust of dissention is always rising.” But on the passing heel of winter last month,…
The tornado which hit Brahmanbaria last month has left 31 people dead, hundreds injured and over 500 homes damaged — all in a fury of about 15 minutes. The government grants and relief can help to only begin the process…
In the tenth year of our independence while attending a reception in our embassy in Washington DC I was asked by a person of Middle Eastern descent if I thought Bangladesh was better off by breaking away from Pakistan. …
As we proceed, Bangladesh is known to be a homogeneous country. But at the same time it has been a storehouse of diverse culture. We laid down our lives for our mother tongue in 1952, fought a war in 1971,…
The original Forum of the 1960s was begun at a time of political upheaval and acted as a platform for voices of change — political, economic, cultural and social. Over 30 years into its closing, we resumed Forum with…
I first started researching Bangladeshi censorship cases as a counter-ballast to an ongoing case in 2007. A list of post-1971 cases was meant to be the appendix to a larger argument about the fragile state of the fourth estate. As…
The Constitution in Article 7(1) declares that all powers in the Republic belong to the people, and, their exercise on behalf of the people shall be effected only under, and by the authority, of this Constitution. For proper exercise of…
The new international significance of Myanmar can be judged by the fact that the US president chose this country as his first destination abroad. This first ever visit by an US president to the hitherto forbidden land also signals the…
Tajuddin Ahmad’s moment of glory came through the rattle of Pakistani gunfire in March 1971. The saddest part of his brief life was arrived at in the few minutes the men who had only months earlier murdered Bangabondhu Sheikh…
