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Pay scale: When will govt employees get a pay hike?
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Kamal Ahmed

Kamal Ahmed is consulting editor at The Daily Star. He led the Media Reform Commission under the interim government. His X handle is @ahmedka1.

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A presidential election, or another coronation?

16 August 2026
On August 20, for only the second time in our history, parliamentarians will have the opportunity to elect the president of the republic.
16 August 2026
Sheikh Hasina media event impact on Bangladesh India relations

Hasina’s media interactions are hurting bilateral ties

10 August 2026
Dhaka’s response to the decision to allow Hasina to speak remotely at the FCC-hosted event was both expected and justified, although some argue that an even stronger protest could have been lodged through a more carefully calibrated choice of words.
10 August 2026
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Book Review: Nonfiction / The story of Bangladesh’s books

4 June 2026
We have long heard stories about the late military ruler H M Ershad and his deep desire to be recognised as a poet.
4 June 2026
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Political shift in West Bengal and its regional ripples

7 May 2026
BJP’s victory in the West Bengal assembly elections has been widely described as a tectonic shift.
7 May 2026
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World Press Freedom Day / Press freedom in a world of slopaganda and churnalism

3 May 2026
Do you feel exhausted trying to find reliable facts about everything happening around you?
3 May 2026
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When reform becomes more power, less accountability

6 April 2026
With the parliamentary politics once again becoming vibrant and engaging, a clear fault line is gradually emerging between the ruling party, BNP, and the opposition, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).
6 April 2026
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A youth-quake Jatiya Sangsad must break with the past

12 March 2026
The 13th Jatiya Sangsad, which goes into its maiden session today, is in many ways a first for the country.
12 March 2026
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Central bank shake-up: Why is BNP undermining its reformist legacy?

1 March 2026
The removal of Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur, widely credited with steadying an economy that was on the brink of potential collapse, has been described by many as nothing short of a blunder by the new government.
1 March 2026
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Why should MPs have a role in school, college management?

The whole episode raises some serious questions regarding the roles of both the lawmaker and the college principals.
20 July 2022
Every resident of Dhaka knows well how much stress one has to cope with just to survive every day. They don’t need reminding that their capital is the seventh least liveable city in the world, or they are the seventh saddest nation. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq

What makes Bangladesh 7th saddest nation in the world?

According to the Global Emotions Report 2022, Bangladesh is the seventh saddest nation in the world. And we became miserable well before the onset of high inflation and cost of living crisis.
8 July 2022
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How the politicisation of courts and judgements weakens democracy

Two verdicts in two different countries, located thousands of miles apart, by their respective supreme courts last week have stoked a serious debate about the role of judges and politicisation of the judiciary.
28 June 2022
enforced disappearances Bangladesh

Mizanur’s ordeal was unacknowledged detention and torture

Well-known civic rights activist Mizanur Rahman’s narration of his harrowing experience of being picked up by police and tortured under custody, published in this newspaper’s online version on June 15, gives us some disturbing snapshots of the unlawful actions of our law enforcement agencies.
20 June 2022
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Stripping Odhikar of its rights?

When Bangladesh needs to show that it has been listening to the concerns about respecting human rights and upholding the rule of law, it has done quite the opposite.
12 June 2022
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Foreign minister’s response to US ambassador: A story for all the wrong reasons

The questions suggested by Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen for the US ambassador to Bangladesh were a repetition of unverified claims made by some politicians in their public speeches.
6 June 2022
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Twitterdom with a new king should worry us all

Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist and the world’s richest man, is the new king of Twitterdom.
27 April 2022
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Are the new online laws designed for the 2023 polls?

The recent publication of the drafts of two long-awaited legislations on regulating the usage of internet in Bangladesh have stoked some debate on their likely impact on both the citizens and businesses.
18 April 2022
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DSA took away Mushtaq

Writer Mushtaq Ahmed paid the ultimate price for his freedom of expression, and it’s a matter of shame for us all that it happened in the year of the Golden Jubilee of Bangladesh’s independence.
25 February 2022
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Democracy’s digital challenge

At the beginning of the current millennium, the world celebrated the visible empowerment of citizens through digital technology due to emergence of social media platforms and search engines.
14 February 2022
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When politics is all about partying

The one issue dominating British politics for weeks is nothing other than the partying going on at the heart of the government, at 10 Downing Street, the office-cum-residence of the prime minister.
10 February 2022
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The CEC’s pre-poll slumber and the question of ballot stuffing

Can anyone remember such degradation of a constitutional body like what our Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda has done?
31 January 2022
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What can we expect from the Search Committee law?

The sudden approval of a draft Election Commission law by the cabinet certainly gives the government and the ruling party a powerful public relation tool, as they can claim they have done what no other party even attempted in the last 50 years.
21 January 2022
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Journalists should be worried about DSA exceptionalism

The extraordinary assurance that no journalist will be arrested immediately under the Digital Security Act (DSA) without a summon seems to be an attractive solution to the concerns and fears created by its random abuse to suppress critical voices in the media.
3 January 2022
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UP elections remind us why we need a political consensus

It seems that some of us are quite intrigued by the results of the Union Parishad (UP) elections that show official nominees of the ruling party, Awami League, having lost in a big way.
30 December 2021
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Misleading analysis of US sanctions must be avoided

Bangladesh’s elite law enforcement force, the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), which has been subjected to a sanction by the US, has now been applauded by the same government for its role in tackling terrorism, according to some media reports.
20 December 2021
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‘Bloodstained’ UP elections and the CEC’s alternative truth

Video footage and reports have been emerging daily on both traditional and social media exposing how violent and intimidating our elections have become.
27 November 2021
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What the racism scandal of English cricket tells us

When Indian-born Muslim cricketer Nasser Hussain captained the England team, no one could have imagined that after nearly two decades, the game would be facing a storm of this magnitude and compel the wider society to confront one of the most sensitive issues: racism.
22 November 2021
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What can we learn from London’s radical move to curb air pollution?

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has done something daring to tackle air pollution in his city. First, he experimented with an Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), with an area designated as a congestion charging area about 25 years ago.
27 October 2021
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Buying of a football club, geopolitics and sportswashing

The takeover of Newcastle United, an ailing English club, by a consortium led by a Saudi-backed investment fund, has once again stoked a passionate debate on sportswashing.
13 October 2021

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