Photo: Amirul Rajiv

Dhaka Tuesday January 1, 2008

There is no more resilient and courageous a people on this planet than the Bangladeshi people. In 2007, we have had to weather political uncertainty and rising prices, cyclones and floods, and no matter what we have had to overcome, we have endured -- proud, upright, unbeaten and unbowed. This New Year Special is a testament to the invincibility of the Bangladeshi people.

Focus 2007

What better way to tell the story of a year than in the real time images and observations, snapped and written even as the events depicted were unfolding. On the following pages we bring you our 24-page retrospective of the year. For each month we have created a stunning photo feature highlighting the four principal stories of the month. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and we hope that these epigrammatic snapshots of the high-points and low-points of the past twelve months will fully capture and crystallise the year that has just come to an end. And together with the photo-calendar, we here reproduce (edited for length, where necessary) the one op-ed piece each month written at the time that we feel best illumines the central events of that month. These pieces are first-hand eye-witness accounts of history being made, and we feel make an invaluable accompaniment to the photo feature: together the photographs and the op-eds tell the story of 2007 and bring the events of the whole year into sharp focus. To glance through these pages is to be at once transported back into the sights, sounds, and stories of the tumultuous, turbulent, and transformative year that was 2007.