My dearest Hindu sisters and brothers, I am overcome with grief, outrage and shame as I write to you.

Nine years after the mindless communal attacks on the Buddhist community in Ramu upazila of Cox’s Bazar, the victims are yet to get justice as no significant progress has been made in the proceedings of cases.

Right opposite the Gabtoli bus terminal, there is a blue building squeezed between bus counters -- a hotel as seedy as it gets. A narrow flight of stairs takes customers up to the bare-bones rooms.

Rohingya repatriation has become even more uncertain following the military takeover in Myanmar while the displaced people find it riskier to go back to their motherland where there is no legitimate government right now.

History unfolds in ways that may appear to be totally incomprehensible to us. It may not fit into our logic, may appear to be contrary to the facts that are at hand and our own analysis, which, often guided by our prejudice, may have indicated a different outcome.

On two successive days on August 14 and 15, 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the 1947 Partition of the subcontinent and its catastrophic fallout on millions of people.

In recent years, Bangladesh has seen a rise in electronic commerce along with other countries around the world.

We have witnessed yet another factory fire catastrophe but this time it involves a factory which does not cater to international garment retailers—hence, loss of lives of the workers burnt inside the Hashem food factory would perhaps be forgotten even sooner.

Recently, reports of two contradictory developments in the power and energy sector have befuddled readers in Bangladesh.

Simplistically put, it is a “procedure vs patient” issue—meaning a “bureaucracy vs ultimate beneficiary” tussle. We, of course, need procedures to work within, otherwise systems would collapse.

Expatriate workers are our goose of Aesop’s Fables that lays the golden eggs.

About the just-concluded West Bengal assembly elections, there are three things to celebrate and one to be worried about.

The ostensible reason for the recent protests was Indian PM Narendra Modi’s latest visit. The real reason was to signal that Hefajat-e-Islam (HI) under its new leadership was not the same party as it was under its former chief Shah Ahmad Shafi and his immediate followers and to announce that HI was ready to emerge as a new political force under the guise of protecting the majority faith.

My generation and others close to it formed the bulk of the Mukti Bahini in 1971. The majority of Dhaka University students of the time were an integral part of it, as it was my distinct privilege.

At 50, it’s time we acted in a manner that reflects a confident country, not one that is nervous and insecure fearing that the slightest criticism will cause us harm.

In Bangladesh, when we think, talk and seek justice, we think of the courts. And that is how it should be. Among the courts, the higher we go -- meaning the High Court, the Appellate Division -- the more important they become as symbols of justice.

Mushtaq Ahmed, the writer, the commentator, the socially conscious citizen, the articulate but moderate voice of dissent and a critical observer of current events is dead.

Thirty years ago, the coming together of a regionally famous editor and a near-novice at journalism along with some visionary investors—Azimur Rahman, AS Mahmud, Latifur Rahman, A. Rouf Chowdhury, Shamsur Rahman—gave birth to what we called in our first editorial the “Independent Voice”.

The Al Jazeera report on Bangladesh titled “All the Prime Minister’s Men”, aired early Tuesday morning, revealed some vulnerabilities of our power structure that pivots around connections, cronyism and corruption. It has also, inadvertently, exposed the weaknesses of our media and the state of its freedom.

He wanted to be an excep-tional journalist, and he was. It was as if he willed himself to be what he wanted to be.