Editor's Note

We begin by offering our sincere gratitude and appreciation to all the readers who made the launch of Forum last month such a success. If you are taking the time to read this, then you merit our personal thanks. For an editor and publisher there is no greater compliment than to have one's publication read and talked about.

The warm response to Forum has decisively proved what we had long believed, that there is indeed a market in Bangladesh for a periodical publication of longer, more discursive essays and commentaries that take a deeper look at the issues of the day and attempt to provide a more thoughtful analysis of where we are today and how we got here.

In this month's issue we are proud to bring to you, among much more, thought-provoking essays on the voter roll and the nature of Bangladeshi democracy, as well as literary essays and an exclusive in-depth investigative report on the controversial Rapid Action Battalion.

In keeping with our determination to provide international-quality commentary on regional and, indeed, global events, we also include pieces by Prem Shankar Jha, MB Naqvi, and Jayadeva Uyangoda, from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, respectively, as well as an essay on Islam and the West by M Shahid Alam.

Mindful of the approaching December 16, we have also included an exclusive extract from Kuldip Nayar's new book, in which he recounts his discussions with Sheikh Mujib and ZA Bhutto in early 1972, and, as a special for our readers, have made a one-time break with our strict policy of exclusivity to arrange with Economic and Political Weekly to reprint Nayanika Mookherjee's brilliant response to Sarmila Bose's revisionist historicism of the War of Liberation.

We have tried to maintain a balance between pieces on the current volatile situation in the country, pieces of historical and scholarly significance and interest, and more analytical, reflective essays on the politics and sociology of the country, all the time striving to provide fresh insight and original thinking.

Ultimately, it will be you, the reader, who will judge whether we have succeeded. We hope that this second issue of Forum meets your expectations, and that there is sufficient thought-provoking, unique, and enlightening content to keep you coming back to our pages every month.